Spider-Man

Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #15, 14, and 13

June 13, 2016 by krisis

Omnibus on Shelf Welcome to week two of my journey through the Top 50 Most-Wanted Omnibuses from Marvel, per an annual secret ballot conducted by major fan TigerEyes. I covered #20-16 in the last installment.

The books ranked from 15 to 1 are some of the most-consistently demanded Marvel material, although two thirds of it is already readily available in color. Particularly, this group of books shows how important cinematic depictions of the Marvel Universe have become even to long-time fans – every book corresponds to a specific screen property.

If you have any extra intelligence to add about the probable runs or opinions about the comics therein, please leave a comment! Even when it comes to X-Men, I’m far from a prohibitive expert on these books. I’d love to hear your perspective.

Want to learn more about the Marvel Omnibus editions that already exist and the issues they cover? My Marvel Omnibus & Oversized Hardcover Guide is the most comprehensive tool on the web for tracking Marvel’s hugest releases – it features every book, plus release dates, contents, and even breakdowns of $/page and what movies the books were released to support. [Read more…] about Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #15, 14, and 13

Marvel Collected Editions Solicits – January and February, 2017

June 13, 2016 by krisis

I got in from a walk with that toddler to a big surprise – Amazon has listed all of Marvel’s collections for the first two months of 2017! That includes a few huge surprises from the omnibus survey, plus a few other books I’ve been pining for.

I’ve broken out the books below. They don’t yet list their contents, so I’ve made a few educated guesses until we can fill in the final contents. If you pre-order with Amazon, please keep in mind that Amazon releases dates are two weeks later that Direct Market release dates.

Please note: This post will not be updated with corrected dates, titles, or issue ranges for these titles. For the most up-to-date information, visit the accompanying collection guide pages.

Marvel Masterworks

There’s only one of these books released each month, so these are the big bombshells from the announcements. [Read more…] about Marvel Collected Editions Solicits – January and February, 2017

Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #50 to 45

June 6, 2016 by krisis

rsz_2016-06-06_095604 One of my favorite comic community happenings of each year is when a message board member named TigerEyes announces that it’s time for the “Annual Secret Ballot: Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibus.”

For the uninitiated, what this means is that over a hundred of the biggest Marvel fans and collectors who like to chat each other up on the internet send in their picks for what Marvel material is most worthy of compiling into an oversize Marvel Omnibus Edition, massive tomes that sometimes run over 1,000 pages and up to 50 issues of collected comics.

Whether it’s causation or correlation, books from the secret ballot tend to get printed by Marvel. Here’s the breakdown from the first three years of the survey:

2013 survey: 10 of 29 books were later printed as Omnibus (or are solicited).
2014 survey: 12 of 52 books were later printed as Omnibus (or are solicited).
2015 survey: 7 of 52 books were later printed as Omnibus (or are solicited).

That makes the secret ballot not only a fun exercise, but a useful straw poll to get an idea of what could be coming our way. In fact, the majority of omnibuses released in 2016 that are not from the past three years of comics are from the poll.

I’ll be tackling the results of the 2016 poll starting with this post, complete with likely contents, explanations, how to read the material right now, and the likelihood we’ll ever see the books in print.

Let’s get started! And, if you want to know more about all of the books that have been released to date, my Marvel Omnibus & Oversized Hardcover Guide is built on a database full of all of the information about these massive tomes so you can sort and filter them. It’s the only tool of its kind on the web!

Review: Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 4 – Graveyard Shift, by Slott, Gage, & Ramos

June 3, 2016 by krisis

Marvel Comics prides itself on the fact that its stories matter and always will – no major reset or reboots to maintain a set status quo.

If there’s one Marvel hero that doesn’t quite apply to it would seem to be Spider-Man. There’s a feeling among both fans and creators that Peter Parker works the best when he’s a young underdog whose life is full of mistakes and missed changes. Spider-Man is no fun as a perfect guy with a great life that’s protected by thick plot armor. It’s more fun to root for him because things go wrong so often in his life.

That feeling is why so many of Spidey’s cross-media appearances focus on him in high school and college. It’s why Marvel launched an Ultimate Spider-Man that replayed Parker’s origin in the context of the 2000s, and surely a part of him being eventually shuffled to the side for a younger model with Miles Morales.

Back in the main universe, that feeling eventually caused one of Marvel’s biggest retcons ever: erasing Parker’s longstanding marriage to Mary Jane to restore him as a romantic lead and youthen him as a character. Spider-Man definitely surged in popularity in the ensuing years, but many long-term fans never returned as readers.

ASMv04 - Vol04 I don’t really have a dog in that fight, but reading Dan Slott’s recent Spider-Man run has me thinking about Peter Parker the underdog, because Slott seems so intent on giving him his due. He’s the CEO of his own company! He’s approaching Tony Stark levels of outwardly expressed genius, and Stark is rarely an underdog.

How does that play out in the final Spider-Man collection before Secret Wars?

The Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 4 – Graveyard Shift

Collects The Amazing Spider-Man (2014) #16-18 & Annual 1

#140char review: Spidey is tired in ASM Vol. 4: Graveyard Shift; it’s all reiterations & wheel-spinning with dodgy art as the pre-Secret Wars clock runs down

CK Says: Skip it!

Dan Slott is amazing at sticking the landing of the crazy concepts he puts Peter Parker through. Everyone turns to spiders! Doc Ock takes over! Every Spider-character ever is hunted down! Yet, here he’s not great at running down the clock on the verge of Secret Wars interrupting his run, even with the assistance of frequent co-writer Cristos Gage. [Read more…] about Review: Amazing Spider-Man, Vol. 4 – Graveyard Shift, by Slott, Gage, & Ramos

Spider-Man Collecting Guide & Reading Order (1963-2018)

Updated June 26, 2026! The Spider-Man comic books definitive issue-by-issue collecting guide and trade reading order for omnibus, hardcover, and trade paperback collections. Find every issue and appearance! Part of Crushing Krisis’s Crushing Comics. Last updated June 2025 with titles scheduled for release through December 2027.

Looking for Miles Morales, Spider-Man? He has his own guide!

There is no hero more synonymous with Marvel Comics than Spider-Man.

Ever since his debut in August of 1962, Peter Parker as Spider-Man has experienced more widespread recognition, popularity, and prolific appearances than any other Marvel hero debuted before or since. Even after he transformed from a scrawny nerd to a superhero, Peter Parker remained relatable thanks to his air of an underdog who somehow found a way to win. He’s also a fine role model, with the motto “With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.”

Over fifty years of comic books focused on just one hero means there are many great Spidey stories out there to read – so many, in fact, that it is hard to know where to begin or what order they should be read in. Add to that the gradual appreciation of back issues, and for a new fan it might seem like enjoying Spider-Man is an insurmountable task.

Luckily, the vast majority of those comics have been collected into dozens of softcover graphic novels, called “trade paperbacks,” and the issues they contain fall into a discernible reading order. This page covers all of them – every issue, every collection – close to every appearance. If you want to figure out the best way to read Spidey, this page is your headquarters.

Looking for more Spider-Man series from 2018 to the present day? See Guide to Spider-Man – Peter Parker (2018 – Present).