Guides to Monica Rambeau, What If, & Echo (Early Access for ALL Patrons!) (Patreon)

Happy New Year, my incredible Patrons! I'm here to catch you up on THREE new comic guides. Each of these guides is significant enough that they would usually merit their own post, but I don't want to bombard you with multiple notifications - so buckle up and let's go!

For Patrons:

• NEW: Guide to Monica Rambeau - Photon (Launch Essay)
• NEW: Guide to What If? (Launch Essay)
• NEW: Guide to Echo (Launch Essay)
• Quick Updates for Patrons: Venom

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

• New Releases: Marvel Comics - January 3, 2024
• Quick Updates: Black Panther, Captain America - Steve Rogers, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man - Peter Parker (2018-present), Thanos, X-Men - The Age of Krakoa

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The Guide to Monica Rambeau was launched back in September, but if you weren't watching the CK main page you might have missed it. The page is in my comprehensive "every appearance included and issue explained" format, complete with suggested places to start and greatest hits.

If you've ever wanted to jump into reading Monica Rambeau, my guide is the perfect place to start.

I hoped to get a Guide to What If? released to you in time for the show's holiday debut, but I'm glad I took the extra time to launch it in the new year since it doesn't directly correspond with episodes of the show. What If? has been mostly existed a series of one-shots since 2004, and it took some time to untangle them all and figure out how they are collected.

This guide has been on my to-do list for such a long time, and I am so happy to finally share it with you!

And, yesterday I launched a Guide to Echo to support her new MCU show! This is another "every appearance" style guide, and it cuts through a lot of very minor Echo appearances to highlight the "must read" material.

If you want to read Echo's comics essentials, this is now the most-complete guide on the web!

I also made my first Marvel New Releases post of the year last week, which is what lead to the various quick updates.

(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 35 Guides to you in the past 365 days - 15 Marvel, 2 DC, & 18 Indie! Plus, I've updated 107 of my 200+ guides.

If I've learned anything over the past few years of this campaign, it's that life always finds a way to interrupt my amazing plans for content.

This time? Shortly after my last Patreon post I somehow spilled an entire bottle of liquid directly into my laptop despite the bottle being well over a meter away from my laptop on the kitchen counter.

Don't ask me how that happened - I'm still not entirely sure. It sent my work life into an emergency tailspin for and meant I couldn't use a lot of my software tools for guide research and blogging.

Luckily, that's all resolved now!

Once I worked out my computer woes, I made several appearances on the Near Mint Condition YouTube channel - even helping Omar launch a brand new show format!

• Breaking Down the X-Men: Prelude to Mutant Massacre Omnibus
• Building a Marvel Evergreen List
• Building a DC Evergreen List
• April 2024 Marvel Solicits Announcement

Since my last Patreon post the median guide freshness date improved from October 2020 to January 2021 (3 months!) while the current median freshness goal is now April 2023.

Here's how that breaks out by publisher:

• Marvel: median guide freshness is July 2021, median freshness goal is May 2023 (one very old X-Guide is dragging this down)
• DC: median guide freshness is still September 2018 (😱), median freshness goal is January 2023 (I'll be working on this in 2024, but Marvel comes first!)
• Image: median guide freshness is March 2023, median freshness goal is June 2023
• Indie/Licensed: median guide freshness is May 2017(😱), median freshness goal is July 2023 (all because of Star Wars guides)

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What's up next on Crushing Comics?

• Coming soon is an an indie/licensed guide for all Patrons
• There will be a new Patron's Choice poll this month
• Look out for a long-awaited DC guide for Pledgeonauts & Up.

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Current Exclusives for Crushing Cadets ($1/month): 49 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 (30): Alpha Flight, Angela, Beta Ray Bill, Black Cat, Blade, Captain Britain, Dazzler, Domino, Dracula, Echo, Elsa Bloodstone, Emma Frost - The White Queen, Heroes for Hire, Legion, Marvel 2099, Marvel Era: Marvel Legacy, Mister Sinister, Monica Rambeau - Photon, Rocket Raccoon, Sabretooth, Silk, Spider-Ham, Spider-Man 2099, Thunderstrike, Valkyrie, Vision, Weapon X, Werewolf by Night, What If?, 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): 79 Guides!

All of the 49 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