X-Men

Fandom, sources, subjective truth, and the Lee/Kirby X-Men Omnibus variant cover

August 28, 2016 by krisis

I won’t bury the lede: the variant edition of the Stan Lee / Jack Kirby classic X-Men Omnibus, Vol. 1 is the Kirby cover.

X-Men Omnibus Vol. 1 by Lee Kirby variant kirby classic cover

This is the variant cover. Don’t trust me – read the third section of this post for proof.

By the way, that was the answer to life, the universe, and everything. It’s turns out it’s not 42 – it’s that the X-Men Omnibus, Vol. 1 direct market variant is the Kirby cover.

How and why I’m making a blog post to answer that question is more interesting than the question or the answer.

When it comes to fandom on the internet, it’s assumed that everyone is working from the same primary source – the material they’re all fanning over.

Since everyone is consuming the same thing, deliberate misinformation would be obvious. Thus, information doesn’t tend to be questioned as it spreads across hundreds of blogs, wikis, lyric sites, comic databases, etc – and, none of those sites ever state their sources, because the source is assumed to be the actual material.

There is a problem with that assumption. Sometimes the source is the material, but sometimes it’s just the whisper down the lane from other secondary sources. Sometimes the source is the material, but it’s being interpreted incorrectly.

There is a lot of room for error without any malicious intent to spread disinformation, and without even the tacit citations of Wikipedia you’ll ever know the providence of the information you’re consuming. Due to ouroboros-like nature of the internet, one slight discrepancy introduced into the system will make the rounds, continuing a feedback loop until a little piece of misinformation swells to prohibitive truth – determining the outcome of arguments and dictating the sale price for rare memorabilia.

Fans like to pretend they’re experts, but a lot of times they’re just another parroting back the feedback. I’ve encountered three examples in the past week, and even with my pseudo-scholarly approach to being a fan I managed to be the parrot one time.

What happens when one of these pieces of information actually matters and the echo chamber is the only possible source? You don’t have to look far to find out – it happens every day. News networks pick up parody articles as truth! People cite statistics that aren’t real! The AP makes up tons of stuff and people take it at face value because, you know, AP. And those are journalists.

It makes me worry that as we put more of our consciousnesses and knowledge into the vast matrix of the internet, the concept of “truth” is becoming increasingly subjective.

Fair warning: the first section of below uses a sometimes derogatory word for vagina twice in the context of quotes about the lyrics to a song. We should not be afraid of words, only what people mean by them. Say it sometime. [Read more…] about Fandom, sources, subjective truth, and the Lee/Kirby X-Men Omnibus variant cover

Cable – The Definitive Collecting Guide and Reading Order

Updated Mar 18, 2025! The Cable 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 March 2025 with titles scheduled for release through September 2025.

No single character defines so much of what is right and what is wrong about the venerable X-Men franchise as Nathan Christopher Dayspring Summers AKA Cable.

Cable was the creation of Rob Liefeld in 1990 when he took over pencilling New Mutants and was charged with creating a leader for the team that contrasted with Professor X’s non-violent philosophy. The character he came up with couldn’t be more of a 90s extreme – a Terminator-esque mysterious time-traveler with a glowing eye, a metal arm, a massive gun, countless pouches, and a set of shoulder pads that tripled the width of his body.

(Alex Ross would later say, “I felt like it looked like they just threw up everything on the character.”)

Cable (and Liefeld) lead the New Mutant team out of passivity and lower sales to become one of Marvel’s biggest sales phenomenons, shedding all but three cast members in the process and relaunching as mega-seller X-Force just one year later in 1991. The first issue was the top-selling comic of all time for exactly one month, until X-Men (1991) #1 outpaced it the next month.

However, something even more interesting was going on with Cable thanks to the plot of another X-book: X-Factor. In the wake of X-Tinction Agenda, X-Factor saw Cyclops’s son with Madelyne Pryor (Mr. Sinister’s clone of Jean Grey) being kidnapped to the moon. There, baby Nathan was infected with a techno-organic virus by former Sinister mentor Apocalypse before being whisked off to the future by Sister Askani in an effort to save his life.

Was it intention or coincidence that a telekinetic baby who was the heir apparent to the X-Men franchise was infected with a metallic virus and sent to the future just months after a telekinetic time-traveler with a missing eye and a metallic arm landed in the present? It didn’t matter, because fan obsession with the idea that Cable could be Cyclops’s son quickly took over and made Liefeld’s extreme new character more in-demand than he was before!

That sort of long-term, interconnected, soap opera plotting is a major part of what makes X-Men comics great. However, Cable’s subsequent adventures offer the insufferable underbelly of X-Men: constantly revised powers, convoluted time travel, unendingly retconned secret agendas, and multiple apparent deaths. Even as a Cable fan it can be hard to say what his current mission is or how many more intermittent jumps to the future he’s conducted since his last appearance.

Despite that, Cable has been central to some biggest comic blockbusters in the past few decades – including co-headling a series with Deadpool, driving both Messiah Complex and Second Coming, anchoring the Avengers “Unity Squad” of Uncanny Avengers along with Rogue, and ushering in the final stages of the pre-Hickman era in 2019.

Cable’s ongoing frenemy relationship with Deadpool is a big part of his lasting appeal. While he’s a militant curmudgeon on his own, as the Merc With a Mouth’s eternal straight man it’s a little easier to see the heart of gold that makes him so central to the X-Men franchise over 30 years after his debut.

Note that this guide refers to Cable and “Nathan” interchangeably throughout when referring to the character and not the title.

Review: Savage Hulk, Vol. 1: The Man Within by Davis, Farmer, & Hollingsworth

July 1, 2016 by krisis

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about audiences and about screaming into the void.

One of my earliest ongoing creative endeavors was writing fan fiction inside the Final Fantasy II (Japan IV) universe. I was writing it just to write it, but then I discovered a few other like-minded folks on the internet and we had a small, shared universe of fiction. Honestly, I have no idea how 14-year-old me put it all together – the details are a blur. It was mostly just that same handful of people who were reading it. No one was writing for attention or exposure. We were all writing for the joy of writing.

The same is true for my songwriting. I spent years writing songs for no one to hear before I started pushing to play them for more people. Even after being in a gigging band for years, to this day the vast majority of my catalog has never been heard outside of our house or this website because I write so darn many songs. I’d have to put out an album a year to keep up and tour constantly.

I have the luxury of doing those things for fun. My fanfic was niche and so is my music, but it doesn’t really matter. I am happy to cast that art out into the void knowing no response would echo back at me.

The problem with doing art for the love of it comes once you’ve actually earned some attention. What happens when more than a handful of people like your writing or your music? Now you have an audience. If you were making art for the love of it, their eyeballs and ears shouldn’t make any difference to you. Yet, it’s hard to avoid their influence, even if you aren’t performing craven acts of fan service to keep them all pleased. Once you’ve seen an indicator that your art is actually being consumed it’s hard to ignore it completely.

Let’s advance that to it’s end state: a popular artist who has followed their own path and pleased fans along the way now wants to do something inherently less popular – or simply something different. I’m not thinking about the dangers inherent in each new release. Instead, consider an independent artist experimenting with a new genre or a big money director wanting to make a decidedly non-mainstream film. J.K. Rowling is a terrific example; after Harry Potter, she didn’t want to write another young readers opus, but that’s what everyone wanted!

It’s a risk. Do they trust fans enough to compartmentalize this work of otherness away from their main oeuvre? You might not be able to afford the detour if it turns too many people off. In Rowling’s case, she released one novel under her own name (The Casual Vacancy) and then another under a pseudonym (The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith). Neither detracted from the fervor for Potter, but the latter earned higher marks from fans and critics, called “a brilliant debut.”

Was it the quality of the Galbraith book that made it more successful, or that it was free of baggage? How would you enjoy the new album from your favorite artist if you didn’t know it was by them?

These questions occur to me with every subsequent piece of art I purchase or consume from a known artist.

Savage Hulk, Vol. 1 – The Man Within

Collects Savage Hulk issues #1-4 written and penciled by Alan Davis, with inks by Mark Farmer and colors by Matt Hollingsworth. Also includes X-Men (1963) #66 written by Stan Lee with pencils by Sal Buscema.

Tweet-sized Review: Alan Davis writes/draws a lovely, clever sequel to X-Men #66, a face-off w/Hulk, in this ode to early-70s Marvel.

CK Says: Consider it.

This Alan Davis Hulk and X-Men story is a love letter to early-70s comic books and it’s possible you simply won’t care. His tale in The Savage Hulk, Vol. 1 – The Man Within branches off from a bash-em-up encounter between the heroes in X-Men #66, the last comic before the hiatus ended by their Giant-Size comeback in 1974.

In a follow-up to that orphaned story, a recovered Professor Charles Xavier feels compelled to design a device that could help Bruce Banner control the Hulk as repayment for Banner’s cure for his mental exhaustion. However, the Hulk is being hunted by the military after causing serious damage in Las Vegas, while Xavier has unwittingly attracted the attention of Hulk’s foe The Leader. [Read more…] about Review: Savage Hulk, Vol. 1: The Man Within by Davis, Farmer, & Hollingsworth

Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #2 and 1 Most-Wanted!

June 20, 2016 by krisis

Omnibus on Shelf We’ve arrived – it’s the finale of my annotated countdown of Marvel Most-Wanted Omnibuses, from the annual Secret Ballot officiated by TigerEyes. I covered #3-4 in the last installment.

As you’ll see in a moment, the top two are a pair of books that hold special interest for me, so this will be a fun one!

Before we get started, I want to thank everyone who has been tuning in daily to read these recaps – especially because you could have easily spoiled the anticipation by Googling to see the ballot results!

Now that you’ve formed a habit of stopping by, I hope you’ll keep it up. I’ll be back to posting comic reviews but I also have a ton of Marvel collections content dreamt up, starting with an absolutely monstrous post tomorrow that acts as an epilogue for this Most-Wanted Omnibus series. To stay up-to-date each week on site content – including new and expanded comic guide pages, you can join my mailing list, “Crushing On Crushing Krisis”:

For more details on all of Marvel’s existing omnibuses, visit my Marvel Omnibus & Oversized Hardcover Guide. It’s the most comprehensive tool on the web for details on every oversize book, including a rundown of contents and if the volume is still readily available for purchase. I’m always working to add more and more-updated information.

Okay. This is it. The final pair of most-wanted omnibuses. Are you ready? [Read more…] about Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – #2 and 1 Most-Wanted!

Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – 6 books that missed the cut

June 18, 2016 by krisis

Omnibus on Shelf We’re hurtling towards a conclusion of 2016’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses from TigerEyes’ secret ballot, but before I could even get the whole list out some of them have been announced for publication in 2017!

This isn’t all that unusual – they whole reason TigerEyes runs this survey in May and June of each year is to beat the solicitations for January of the following year. Anticipating we’d see a few of the most-wanted books picked off, he reveal a list of the next six books that just missed the cut.

These six books will all be big contenders next year (unless they’re printed before then). Let’s dive in… [Read more…] about Marvel’s Most-Wanted Omnibuses of 2016 – 6 books that missed the cut