Guide to Birds of Prey (Early Access for ALL Patrons!) (Patreon)

Hello, my fierce Patrons! Last week I launched only my second new DC Guide this year, plus made a few MASSIVE page updates to existing guides.

For Patrons:

NEW: Guide to Birds of Prey (Launch Essay)
UPDATED: Guide to Elsa Bloodstone

Quick Updates for Patrons: Spider-Man - Miles Morales, Venom, Werewolf by Night

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

UPDATED: Guide to Avengers (1963-1996) (Announcement)

UPDATED: Guide to Conan (Announcement)
UPDATED: Guide to Silver Age X-Men (Announcement)

Quick Updates: Avengers Flagship Titles (2018-Present), Captain America - Steve Rogers, Daredevil, Moon Knight

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Birds of Prey wasn't my top priority for a DC Guide heading into last week, but it has always been one of the core of 52 character and team guides I've had planned for the Guide to DC Comics since it launched in 2017... and, I loved the new #1 issue from Kelly Thompson, Leonardo Romero, Jordie Bellaire, & Clayton Cowles.

(Sometimes my reading drives my guide work, and sometimes it's the other way around.)

Generally, it makes sense to launch team guides like the Guide to Birds of Prey prior to fleshing out individual character pages of their members, because the team titles contain so many character appearances and significant arcs! When I build the Black Canary and Batgirl guides, they'll both need to heavily interlink with Birds of Prey.

DC Guides are typically exclusive to the Pledgeonaut level ($1.99USD), so if you want access to more upcoming DC guides please be sure you're supporting at that level.

Last week also kicked off a pair of big guide update initiatives.

First, it's time for a rebuild of all of my Avengers team title guides! Now that I've rebuilt all of my X-Men guides, the Avengers lines are some of the oldest guides in need of an update. That meant beginning with the Guide to Avengers (1963-1996), a guide which originally debuted in 2011.

This is a "Ship of Theseus" situation, where I truly replaced every single link, issue range, and image on the entire page. At this point, I'm not sure anything remains the same from its launch in 2011 save for the A-symbol I use as a page divided.

Second, now that I rebuilt all of the X-Guides earlier this year, it's time for their first major updates with new collected editions! Luckily, regular updates get way easier after I've modernized a guide with a rebuild - which is the whole point of doing the rebuilds! This update to the Guide to Silver Age X-Men clarifies some collected edition contents, adds the new Re-Masterworks hardcovers, and details Marvel's licensed reprints with Penguin and Taschen.

Outside of those initiatives, there are still nearly 100 other guides in major need of a refresh. Last week I tackled my Guide to Conan to add all of the remaining Marvel reprints through the end of 2022, plus start a new section for the fresh Titan Comics relaunch and reprint program.

Finally, in the middle of making some Quick Updates I also did one FULL update of a Patrons-only guide - the Guide to Elsa Bloodstone. The guide is now updated with all of her appearances through the present, including her co-starring role in the new Werewolf by Night comic.

(Quick Updates are only announced here on Patreon. They include current and future series and collected editions, but not and update to guest appearances or page structure - both of which I save for when I make full guide updates that are announced on the CK main page.)

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.

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Behind-the-Scenes Krisis

I have launched 32 Guides to you in the past 365 days - 12 Marvel, 2 DC, & 18 Indie! Plus, I've updated 97 of my 207 guides.

Since my last Patreon post the median guide freshness date improved from October 2020 to November 2020 (1 month) while the current median freshness goal is still January 2023.

Here's how that breaks out by publisher:

• Marvel: median guide freshness is May 2021, median freshness goal is January 2023
• DC: median guide freshness is September 2018 (😱), median freshness goal is September 2022
• Image: median guide freshness is March 2023, which is the goal!
• Indie/Licensed: median guide freshness is May 2017(😱)*, median freshness goal is March 2023

* This is because each Star Wars film-era guide (i.e., A New Hope, The Last Jedi) counts as one guide, and their freshness date is still their launch from 2017. I need to start tackling these!

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What's up next on Crushing Comics?

I'm happy with my progress in the past week, and I hope you are too! Even with thousands of people visiting CK every day, you are always my primary audience for new and updated guides.

Your next guide will be a Marvel character guide for a hero who is stepping into her own spotlight in 2023. I've really enjoyed researching this one! After that guide might be a new DC hero with a space-faring history - we'll see how things go.

Also, I'm still working on that longtime Patron request I mentioned last week. I'll share a ETA when it starts taking a slightly more firm shape.

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Current Exclusives for Crushing Cadets ($1/month): 45 Guides!

DC Guides (7): Batman – Index of Ongoing Titles, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Birds of Prey, Green Lantern Corps, Green Lantern: Hal Jordan, Green Lantern: Kyle Rayner, Omega Men

Marvel Guides (26): Alpha Flight, Angela, Beta Ray Bill, Black Cat, Blade, Captain Britain, Dazzler, Domino, Dracula, Elsa Bloodstone, Emma Frost - The White Queen, Heroes for Hire, Legion, Marvel 2099, Marvel Era: Marvel Legacy, Mister Sinister, Rocket Raccoon, Sabretooth, Silk, Spider-Ham, Spider-Man 2099, Thunderstrike, Valkyrie, Vision, Weapon X, X-Man – Nate Grey

Indie & Licensed Comics (12): The Authority, Black Hammer, Brigade, Codename Strykeforce, Cyberforce, Pitt, Princeless & Raven The Pirate Princess, Savage Dragon, ShadowHawk, Stormwatch, Supreme, WildStorm Events

Current Exclusives For Pledgeonauts ($1.99+/month): 75 Guides!

All of the 45 guides above, plus 30 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 (12): Darkhawk, Falcon, Gwenpool, Hellcat - Patsy Walker, Kang the Conqueror, Loki, Power Pack, Red She-Hulk, Sentry, Spider-Gwen, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Venom

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