Guide to Morbius (Early Access for ALL Patrons!) (Patreon)

Hello, my living, breathing, definitely-not-undead Patrons! I'm back with your Patron's Choice guide for February... or, should I say, one of your choices - since you somehow conspired to hand me a three-way tie on the January poll! Plus, something extra for Pledgeonauts...

• PATRON'S CHOICE: Guide to Morbius - The Living Vampire (Launch Essay)
• NEW (for Pledgeonauts): Guide to ThunderCats (Launch Essay)
• Quick Updates for Patrons: Aliens, Dracula, Marvel 2099, Power Pack, Sabretooth, Venom 

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

• New Releases: Marvel Comics - January 31, 2024 
• New Releases: Marvel Comics - February 7, 2024 
• Video Stream: Announcing Marvel May Solicits on Near Mint Condition 
• Quick Updates: Captain America - Steve Rogers, Daredevil, Deadpool, Doctor Strange, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, Iron Fist, Iron Man - Tony Stark, Magneto, Moon Knight, New Mutants & Young X-Men, Shang-Chi, She-Hulk - Jennifer Walters, Thor - The Odinson, Wolverine - Logan 

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I've been looking forward to creating a Guide to Morbius for a few years now and just haven't made the time for it, since Morbius has relatively few titles and collections to his name. I was thrilled that he was one of your votes in January's spooky Patron's Choice poll.

I really dug in to reading every Morbius appearance to create a solid guide with issue-by-issue recommendations on his material. It turns out I truly love all of his initial decade of 1971-1981 material, as covered completely in his omnibus or his pair of Epic Collections.

(His 32-issue 1992 Midnight Sons series is one of the biggest swaths of uncollected Marvel comics in the 1990s! Let's hope they extend his Epic line to cover that series in 2025.)

Also, last week I debuted a Guide to ThunderCats exclusively for Pledgeonauts and up. This was an example of me actually looking ahead at upcoming releases and realizing that ThunderCats had a huge new #1 issue out this week!

(It also was an example of me vastly underestimating the difficulty of a guide, as I gritted my teeth and decided I was going to track down the credits for every original ThunderCats story, including through 129 issues of their now-rare 1987 Marvel UK comic magazine. Learn all about it in my launch essay!)

Meanwhile, I appeared on the Near Mint Condition Marvel May Solicits stream! I'll be joining Omar and the gang for all of the remaining Thursdays in February for a number of all-new, all-different streams - and some familiar ones, too.

I also made Marvel Comics new releases posts for January 31 and February 7, my 5th and 6th of the year. I'm pulling up the typical calendar day of these posts to the Thursday/Friday prior to new release day rather than the Tuesday prior so I have more wiggle-room in my schedule.

Those new release posts brought a massive wave of Quick Updates with them, because we also saw a batch of new Collected Edition solicitations hit the book market.

(Quick Updates are only announced here on Patreon. They include current and future series and collected editions, but not an 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 39 Guides to you in the past 365 days - 16 Marvel, 3 DC, & 20 Indie/Licensed! Plus, I've updated 129 of my 200+ guides.

I may take a week of hiatus from guide work next week, as I have to make a three-day road trip.

For reasons I cannot explain, even though the US Embassy is located here in Wellington (the capital of New Zealand), all of their citizen services are headquartered at the Consulate in Auckland.

Auckland is a quick flight from Wellington, but for many reasons both boring and fun it just makes more sense to drive there and back. The drive is about the same as the trek from Philly to Maine and it includes many hours of driving past the actual Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings movies).

Also, there's a lot of Drag Race happening right now. I know you are all primarily comics fans, but if you're also fans of drag (or, if you want to understand what actually happens on an episode of the show) I hope you check out my ongoing drag coverage.

Since my last Patreon post, the median guide freshness date remains February 2021, while the current median freshness goal remains May 2023. I'm so close to being less than two years behind my goal - updating some of my earliest DC Guides will finally move that needle (and I've finally gotten started!).

• Marvel: median guide freshness improved to August 2021, median freshness goal remains June 2023 (one very old X-Guide continues to drag this down)
• DC: median guide freshness is still September 2018 (😱), median freshness goal is now February 2023 (and I'm finally started on improving this!)
• Image: median guide freshness is March 2023, median freshness goal is July 2023.
• Indie/Licensed: median guide freshness improved to September 2017, median freshness goal is now August 2023 (as always, it's Star Wars era guides holding this back)

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What's up next on Crushing Comics?

What do YOU want to see me work on next? Leave me a comment on this post on Patreon to let me know!

Here's what I have in mind:

• Another of your three Patron's Choice votes from January. (I always reserve the right to break ties, but I really need a guide for one of the other characters you chose!)
• The next Superman Guide for Pledgeonauts and up
• Perhaps a return to my march through Image's 90s comics?

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Current Exclusives for Crushing Cadets ($1/month): 51 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 (31): 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, Morbius, 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 (13): Aliens, 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): 86 Guides!

All of the 51 guides above, plus 35 more guides…

DC Guides (17): 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, Superman - Action Comics (Pre-Crisis, 1938-1986), Swamp Thing

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

Indie & Licensed Comics (6): Miracleman, ROM - Spaceknight, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - IDW Continuity, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Mirage Studios Continuity, ThunderCats