Guide to Drax + New Indie Guides (Early Access for ALL Patrons!) (Patreon)

Hello, my intergalactic Patrons - and welcome to new supporters from galaxies not so far, far away! I'm back with another new guide to a Guardian of the Galaxy, plus more guides from my Indie Comics Month! Let's blast off!

NEW: Guide to Drax the Destroyer (Launch Essay)

NEW: Guide to Cyberforce (Launch Essay)

NEW: Guide to Codename: Strykeforce (Launch Essay)

Plus, powered-by-Patrons but available for all readers:

Revised & Updated: Guide to X-Men Flagships (2010-2019) (Announcement)

Updated: Guide to X-Men Legacy (Announcement)

Updated: Guide to Doom Patrol (Announcement)

##

Breaking News: I'll be back on the Near Mint Condition YouTube channel TODAY, Thursday March 30 at 1pm ET to announce Marvel's July solicits with Omar. I always have a blast with Omar and the crew, so I'm really looking forward to it.

##

I have a whole new appreciation for Drax after reviewing all of his appearances in order for my Guide to Drax the Destroyer. I never fully grasped how central death and resurrection are to his story, and how that mechanic ties in with his varying intellect and powers.

When I was buying all of Cyberforce's floppy issues to complete my collection back in 2016 I was so confused about how it just... stops in 1997 and disappears without a trace. Building this Guide to Cyberforce clued me in to how much of that is explained in Cyberforce (2006) #0 - as well as JLA/Cyberforce. I'm not used to intercompany crossovers being so significant!

Of course, with a guide to Cyberforce I also needed a Guide to Codename Strykeforce. This is the first Image guide this month that cut in line to be published out of order compared to its comic debut - it simply didn't make sense to have a Cyberforce Guide without it, and I didn't want to merge the two.

The Guide to X-Men Flagships (2010-2019) represents the closing parenthesis on a massive multi-guide re-org that began last month with my rebuild of the Guide to New Mutants & Young X-Men. With hindsight I've clarified the lines between flagship titles and titles focused on new classes of mutants, and both guides are stronger as a result.

I wish I could say there were equally big changes for the Guide to X-Men Legacy, but we still have no Mike Carey reprints. There was better news for the Guide to Doom Patrol, which saw its 1987 series completed last year with the announcement of an omnibus of Rachel Pollack's run. I also added DC Universe Infinite reading links throughout the guide.

To see new guides and guide updates announced as they happen, keep an eye on the CK homepage.

When you visit a Patreon guide you should be prompted to log in to CK using your Patreon login. If you aren't prompted when visiting a guide page, try visiting the CK login page directly.

##

Behind-the-Scenes Krisis

I can confidently say that planning to launch more than 15 guide pages in a 31 day period is too many guides, even if some of them are small! 😂 

One thing that working on so many indie guides in a row has taught me is that we take for granted that the answer is always out there on the internet when it comes to geek media.

Creator credits, character appearances, plot summaries - maybe that's all summarized on a wiki for an issue for X-Men or even Shazam. The farther away you get from big-selling books and the media spotlight, the slimmer the online information about a comic becomes. I've hit a few issues and trades over the course of this month where there's literally no accurate record online of what they contain and no copies currently for sale (let alone copies I could get shipped to New Zealand).

(Of course, sometimes it turns out they were cancelled before being published! But, that's only been the case twice so far. Other times, it just took some digging.)

Luckily, I own or have subscription access to almost every issue I'm covering this month - because a lot of this guide work is turning into primary source research of scouring credits, letters pages, and solicit text! I'm excited that CK is now a source for that information on the web... or at least, it will be once these guides go public. 

We hit a sudden cold snap in Wellington two nights ago, with the temperature plummeting 30°F by the time we woke up in the morning. It never gets to be quite freezing in Wellington, but I certainly wasn't expecting to see any frost on the grass in March!

(Remember, I have opposite seasons to you northern hemisphere folks.)

In the states I was one of those stubborn people who never wanted to turn the heat on until after Thanksgiving - which is only one month prior to Winter Solstice. The equivalent in NZ would be no heat until May 20th

Yeah... that didn't happen. I had the heat on after the first 24hrs of cold!

I have launched 38 Guides to you in the past 365 days - 21 Marvel, 5 DC, & 12 Indie! Plus, I've also made many significant updates to existing guides. The median guide update date has improved from October 2019 to December 2019. (Current goal: July 2022 - the gap keeps getting smaller!)

##

What's up next on Crushing Comics?

I have a handful more Image guides to launch before the end of the month. Your Patron's Choice of Black Hammer will actually be the first guide of April if all continues according to schedule.

(There's one indie guide I really wanted to complete this month but I had to delay for later. I wasn't satisfied that I did a good enough job summarizing its publishing history, because they don't sell ANY digital comics of the title. I'm going to try again next month when time isn't so tight, Maybe after I can track down physical copies of some of few issues somewhere in NZ 😰.)

Early in April I should have at least one more Guardians guide for you, all of which will go live to the public in the week leading up to the film. From there, I'm going to pivot to a few new guides to support the upcoming releases of Secret Invasion and Spider-Verse.

Also, you may have noticed that I'm nearly through with updating every X-Guide to the present day in my weekly update series. I'll be pivoting to another franchise for my regular weekly updates shortly after Guardians.

As always, I'm interested to know what YOU want to see next. Someone recently commented they'd love to see a Guide to Doop, and that would be a fun one to work on between bigger, tougher guides. Whether the thing you want to see is big or small, brand new or an update, drop me a comment or DM to let me know.

##

Current Exclusives for Crushing Cadets ($1/month): 42 Guides!

DC Guides (6): Batman – Index of Ongoing Titles, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: Hal Jordan, Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner, Omega Men

Marvel Guides (27): Adam Warlock, Alpha Flight, Angela, Beta Ray Bill, Black Cat, Blade, Captain Britain, Dazzler, Domino, Dracula, Drax the Destroyer, Elsa Bloodstone, Emma Frost - The White Queen, Gamora, Heroes for Hire, Legion, Marvel Era: Marvel Legacy, Mister Sinister, Sabretooth, Spider-Ham, Star-Lord, Thunderstrike, Valkyrie, Vision, Weapon X, X-Man – Nate Grey, X-Men - Age of Krakoa

Indie & Licensed Comics (9): Brigade, Codename: Strykeforce, Cyberforce, Lumberjanes, Princeless & Raven The Pirate Princess, Savage Dragon, ShadowHawk, WildCATs, WildStorm Events

Current Exclusives For Pledgeonauts ($1.99+/month): 73 Guides!

All of the 42 guides above, plus 31 more guides…

DC Guides (16): Animal Man, Aquaman, Books of Magic, Catwoman, Doctor Fate, Flash, Harley Quinn, Houses & Horrors, Infinity Inc., Justice League, Justice Society of America, Mister Miracle, Nightwing, Outsiders, Suicide Squad, Swamp Thing

Marvel Guides (13): Darkhawk, Falcon, Gwenpool, Hellcat - Patsy Walker, Kang the Conqueror, Loki, Power Pack, Red She-Hulk, Sentry, Silk, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Venom

Indie & Licensed Comics (2): Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - IDW Continuity, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Mirage Studios Continuity