Guide to Magik - Illyana Rasputin! (Early Access for ALL Patrons!)

I'm back with a new X-Guide, my magical Patrons! As a follow-up to a Map My X with Near Mint Condition last week and to celebrate her new ongoing series, I bring you a complete reading order for Illyana Rasputin - Magik!

• NEW: Guide to Magik - Illyana Rasputin (Launch Essay)

• Quick Updates for Patrons: Aliens, The Authority, Catwoman, Flash, Justice League, Mister Miracle, Nightwing, Venom

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

• DC Comics

  • New Releases: January 15, January 22

  • Quick Updates: Batman - Detective Comics (Post-Crisis), Green Arrow

• Marvel Comics

  • New Releases: January 15, January 22

  • Quick Updates: Blade, Ghost Rider, Iron Man - Tony Stark, Marvel Ultimate Universe, Scarlet Witch, X-Men - From the Ashes

• Indie & Licensed Comics

  • New Releases: January 15, January 22

  • Quick Updates: Conan

• YouTube

  • Crushing Comics January 8 Pull List Review

  • Crushing Comics January 15 Pull List Review

  • Map My X: Magik

  • X-Men: Blue & Gold Omnibus Mapping X-Plained

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I'm very happy to be talking to you again in a matter of weeks instead of after several months!

The past two weeks of Crushing Krisis have been total madness! Not only did I re-read every comic featuring Illyana Rasputin for my Guide to Magik, I continued my trio of New Releases posts each week, debuted a weekly live pull list stream on my YouTube channel, was on a Map My X: Magik panel to go along with this new guide, and X-Plained the newly-announced Blue & Gold omnibus mapping on Near Mint Condition.

Add to that my regular appearances on Jammin' on Comics on Omnidog's Vault and the DC Events Evergreen Debate, and I was streaming 6 times in 9 days in addition to all of my guide work.

Oh, and I read several hundred comics to help me achieve all of those things... and, some for fun, too 😜

Quite a sprint!

I hope not to do quite that much streaming in a single week ever again, but you never know. February should be a little bit quieter for me, but we have another Map My X coming in March, monthly Evergreen debates, plus I'll be co-hosting the Marvel and DC Tigeyes Annual Omnibus Polls.

A reminder: Quick Updates are only announced here on Patreon. They include additions of current and future series and newly-announced collected editions.

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 a few behind-the-scenes morsels to report this time around.

First, this new Guide to Magik consisted of nearly 700 appearances and took about ten hours to complete. I don't usually like to reveal how long these things take, but I think this is worth pointing out because it's relatively average for a character with hundreds of appearances.

Any character guide for someone who has been around for a few decades or a few hundred appearances takes more than a full workday to research, write, and format.

Second, after some further experimentation and optimization, I decided to move ahead with that major CK RAM upgrade. It was expensive, but it really transforms the experience of using CK - both for visitors and for me working on the backend!

My traffic immediately ticked up once the site sped up, which is wild to think about since I've already been setting new records for traffic with every month. But, it makes sense - Google rewards faster sites with better search results placement, and visitors view more pages on faster sites.

Third, I signed on as part of the New Mint Condition editorial board for 2025.

What does that mean? Last year, Omar tapped me for all sorts of fun projects throughout the year, but we often didn't know they were coming until he sent the invite.

This year, I'm working closely with Omar and Dom of X (with advice from other regulars like Omnidog) to plan the entire year of live-streamed panels on the Near Mint Condition channel including my existing gigs on the Evergreen Debate, Map My X, Marvel Solicits, and the Tigereyes polls, as well as some other new streams and even streams I'm not on!

I know, you might be thinking, "Geeze, Krisis, did you need another job with an editorial calendar?!" But, for me it's really energizing to work on editorial content with a whole team of contributors where I'm not responsible for everything on the calendar!

Plus, helping to plan content for a channel with >100k subscribers is a totally different beast than a corporate editorial calendar or planning guides for CK.

And, finally... I started several new guides. Working on the weekly New Releases posts means I often have to read and research some titles on the fly to know what to write, and rather than just jot that down on a napkin I've been using it to get a head start on drafting new guides.

You might see a few surprising smaller guides pop up alongside my main Marvel and DC content - sometimes Patron-exclusive, but others just debuting direct to the general public. More new guides mean more opportunities for traffic, which helps CK grow.

• Overall Goal: October 2024 Average Guide Freshness Date

  • Currently: October 2024!!! 🎉

• Marvel Goal: October 2024 Average Guide Freshness Date

  • Currently: November 2024!!! 💪

• DC Goal: August 2024 Average Guide Freshness Date.

  • Currently: May 2024 (improved from April in the past 2wks 😅)

• Image Goal: November 2024 Average Guide Freshness Date

  • Currently: September 2023 (a slight improvement, but a lot more work to go 😊)

• Indie/Licensed: November 2024 Average Guide Freshness Date

  • Currently March 2023 😭
    (as always, this is mostly due to some elderly Star Wars era guides)

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What's up next on Crushing Comics?

After a character guide with several hundred appearances like this one, I might knock out a few more title-focused guides before swinging back to more solo characters.

I think you'll be seeing at least one new Indie guide before we're back to Marvel Solo characters and a DC Guide... plus, maybe something a little different? We'll see what I cook up.

As a reminder, DC Guides & Indie Guides that are NOT Patron's choice are for Pledgeonauts and up - which is only an extra $1 a month as of this writing!

Keep your eye on the CK homepage for next week's new releases.

Next week I'll have just two streaming appearances:

• Sunday 26 Jan @3:00pm US ET Crushing Comics Live ‪on Crushing Krisis‬
  (This is an hour earlier just for this week.)

• Thursday 30 Jan @ 2:30pm US ET - Marvel May 2025 Solicits on Near Mint Condition

What new guides are you hoping to see from me in 2025? Especially when it comes to Marvel and DC characters, I care about your feedback the most!

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Exclusives for Crushing Cadets ($1/month): 54 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 (34): Alpha Flight, Angela, Beta Ray Bill, Black Cat, Blade, Captain Britain, Carnage, Dazzler, Domino, Dracula, Echo, Elsa Bloodstone, Emma Frost - White Queen, Heroes For Hire, Kraven the Hunter, Legion, Magik - Illyana Rasputin, Marvel 2099, Marvel Era: Marvel Legacy, Mister Sinister, Monica Rambeau - Photon, Morbius, Red Hulk, Rocket Raccoon, Sabretooth, Silk, Spider-Ham, Spider-Man 2099, Thunderstrike, Valkyrie, Vision, Weapon X, Werewolf by Night, 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

Exclusives For Pledgeonauts ($1.99+/month): 95 Guides!

All of the guides above, plus 41 more…

DC Guides (20): Action Comics (1987 - Present), 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 (1939) - Pre-Crisis, Superman - Post-Crisis, Superman in Action Comics (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 (5): Miracleman, ROM - Spaceknight, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - IDW Continuity, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Mirage Studios Continuity, ThunderCats

Doctor Who (3): 3rd Doctor, 9th Doctor, Multiple Doctor Events