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How to get into the Marvel comics universe? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 week ago by Human01001100@lemmy.ml to c/marvel@lemmy.ml

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I have never read comic books until the last month in which I read the Invincible Series(by Robert Kirkman) because I wasn't patient enough to wait for the show lol. After that, I've read a few more Graphic Novels, and now I'll try venturing in the marvel comics, but there are so many, and I don't know how to start, what to read, what not to read, order of reading, idk, I just really need some help. I'm in the final stretch of the The Walking Dead Series, and would love to, after finishing it, dive right the way into the marvel comics.

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[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Out of what's in the screen shot, I'd order them right to left, bottom to top, with the Hawkeye on the top row being the exception.

The Hawkeye and old man Logan stuff is superb, and relatively self contained.

Ms Marvel is great, but it's less of a jumping in place to marvel. Damn good title, just might want to start with stuff that's less likely to bounce around as much.

The other ones are solid reads, but they might not make much sense until you get a bit deeper into the marvel comic universe

[–] Human01001100@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thanks for the tips.

The thing that troubles me getting into a universe of such magnitude is getting the several titles and arcs to make sense both individually and correlated. Don't knownif you're familiared with the cosmere universe by Brandon Sanderson, composed by standalones and series that kinda correlate, but I kinda fucked up on the reading order and missed a few references, eater eggs, stuff that would be exciting to understand, but just became clear uppon a rereading, I don't want to go through that with the marvel universe. Maybe... I'm just overthinking things

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

I haven't read that series, but I know what you mean from talking to people that have

And it's not a bad companion at all.

Both of the older hero comic companies have not just decades of history, but a lifetime. It's creeping up on a century that Superman has been around, and a lot of folks consider him the first superhero.

Even much more recent characters like Spiderman still have over fifty years of history. And, in each DC and Marvel, they've had internal crossovers, reboots to the history, retcons of the history, and just about every form of silliness of that sort.

Image, the more recent company, still has such a long history now that it's hard to jump on without going back decades to read from the beginning.

I've been reading comics in general, and superhero comics in particular since about 1980ish. That I can recall, but my mom has said stuff about me flipping through comics as a toddler, so maybe even before then. I've still not read everything out there just from my favourite characters. So, I don't believe you're over thinking the issue.

The good news is that you don't actually need to go too far back to enjoy the daylights out of comics. You might need to look up good jumping on points for long running titles, but they exist, and are fairly easy to find. The reason it's easy is that comics aren't afraid to recap things. When they do a callback to an issue from sixty years ago, they'll either give a recap, have an editor's note on the page, or otherwise make the important stuff available so that you can keep reading and things make sense.

A lot of the time, us old timers recommend that people pick up a specific story arc (like the house of m stuff), or go into an era with a specific writer that did something wonderful (like Frank Miller's Daredevil run). We eventually figured out that when it comes to a new fan, there's no perfect, single answer. The best jumping on point is whatever comic is in their hand, and go for the coolest sections after that.

If you get caught up in the idea that things have to go in order, the only answer is go back to the beginning. And that works fine until you hit a crossover lol. But it isn't necessary. Hell, in some cases, it's detrimental. If you go all the way back to Spidey's earliest books, you'll find out that they aren't what most people think of as comics nowadays. It's like the difference between Scooby-doo and the X-Files. Yeah, it's a bunch of wacky characters chasing mysteries, but the approach is totally different.

I'd even argue that if what you're wanting to read is more than a decade old, just go to the Wikipedia page for the characters or teams and get the synopsis. Then read whatever you want. Everyone knows Spidey's origin story, so if you aren't interested in Scooby doo style comics, skip it and just pick up the five most recent issues and plow ahead, if you don't want a specific story arc.

I guess what I'm saying is don't let canon and history ruin the fun of comics. You'll get caught up eventually anyway, and it's almost a guarantee that parts are going to get retconned in a few years lol. Enjoy the chaos as part of the fun of it all.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What kinds of stories are you interested in? Do you want a teen hero or an adult? Are you interested in the main character being female? Do you want it to be serious or funny? Do you want stories where the world is threatened, or just stories involving a neighbourhood?

Of the 6 in the image you shared, I think I've read them all, but I honestly don't remember the Hawkeye ones very well. Hawkeye had some great storylines, but I just don't remember those ones by the covers.

Civil War had its own movie adaptation, but the comic version is much better. It involves heroes fighting heroes. It involves heroes choosing sides for what's most important, is it individual liberty or is it collective safety? It was a huge event that had tie ins in dozens of different comic books. It's a very big event, I would guess that a full book will still miss out on a lot of peripheral stories in say the Spider Man comic books. It's great, but I'm not sure it's a good place to start.

House of M was an amazing story. If you watched the WandaVision TV series, it's similar in that you don't know what has happened to reality. This is also a huge event that crosses over all kinds of other storylines. But, this one might be something you appreciate more if you've been reading Marvel Comics for decades. It upends the entire world, and so you need to know a bit about the world before you appreciate everything that happens.

Ms Marvel is on the complete opposite end of the scale. Instead of world-changing events, it's a teenage girl with superpowers just trying to figure things out with her friends. Instead of being epic, it's just really charming.

Old Man Logan is also another one that's probably mostly going to appeal to people who have been reading Wolverine for a long time. It's a great story, but you appreciate it a lot more if you've been reading Woverine comics for a long time and know what makes him tick.

What I think makes sense it to start small. Don't dive right in with the full Civil War or House of M series. Start with just one hero or one team, and start with the stuff that's currently being published. You can always go back and read the big events later. But, it's less overwhelming just to pick up where things are now and find out what kind of stuff you want to read more about.

I think Free Comic Book Day just ended, so you might not be able to get them free anymore. But, often the Free Comic Book Day releases are a good place to start. They know that people will be jumping in for the first time, so they make them accessible. The other good way to go is to get a recent #1. Apparently a new Amazing Spider Man run just started, so you can start with issue 1 and go from there. Laura Kinney: Wolverine is at #5, so you wouldn't have to go back too far to get the start of that one.

tl;dr: Start small, start with something modern/recent. Figure out if there's a hero or a team (or a writer or an artist) you like, and use that to explore more. If you like what you're reading, you'll figure out what to read next. If you don't like it, move on to something else.

[–] Human01001100@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The stories I'm interested are for adults and more serious. Don't really care for the gender, race of the character or anything like that, what I seek is well developed, complex characters. The scale of the usually don't matter, but I tend to gravitate towards bigger threats and longer plots. Some friends of mine have recommended me civil war and old man logan, but the lack of a bigger picture plot discouraged me, given the magnitude of the marvel universe.

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll check them out.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago

You definitely get complex characters in the Civil War storyline, because the characters there are struggling about what it means to be "good". But, I wouldn't jump right in with Civil War, because it's a story that has a lot more impact if you really know the characters well.

IMO, a lot of the X-Men stories are better if you want complex characters. The Avengers are often fighting things that threaten the entire world. But, the X-Men are often fighting anti-mutant discrimination. That leads to complexity because their opponents aren't evil, they're often humans who (when well written) also have their own complex motivations. There are also a lot of characters in the X-Men who are sometimes villains, sometimes heroes.

Having said that, some of the stand-alone Avengers also have great complexity. Like, there are good Iron Man stories where Tony Stark is dealing with his alcoholism. Hawkeye also has some really good writing. His struggles are mostly smaller scale, family life, etc. Daredevil also often has some really good character development. Oh, and Moon Knight is really good for interesting storytelling. Another good one is Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch). She's at the heart of some of the biggest, craziest Marvel events. But, because of that, it's hard to just jump in with her stuff.

[–] Human01001100@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 week ago

Btw, what really got me into comics was the invincible series, tried reading the walking dead series, by the same author, attempting to fill the void left by the invincible series, but I didn't enjoy it as much.

[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago

Check out the old AvP comics

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

So the important thing to keep in mind is that there are different "corners" of the Marvel universe and while they can and do intersect and collide, you can happily sit in one corner, completely unaware of the others.

Edit My wife also suggests Marvel Unlimited so you can dip your toes in, experiment, and find what you like. I, for example, never cared for Doctor Strange, but got sucked in by The Death of Doctor Strange, Strange, and Strange Academy.

The big ones:

X-Men: Recently rebooted with new number ones across the board, really my introduction to Marvel. Mutants trying to live in a world that hates them.

Current books: Cable: Love and Chrome, Deadpool/Wolverine, Giant Size X-Men, Wolverine, Magik, Rogue: The Savage Land, Laura Kinney: Wolverine, Psylocke, Storm, X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, Wolverine and Kitty Pryde, Exceptional X-Men, Weapon X-Men, Phoenix, X-Factor (ending), Nyx (Ending), X-Force (ending), Juggernaut, Kid Juggernaut.

Spider-Man: Marvel's most recognizable character. Generally street level super-heroics. If it's something that's going to break the planet, that's outside Pete's scope.

Current books: Eddie Brock: Carnage, Spider-Boy, Venom: Original Sin, Spider-Man and Wolverine, Amazing Spider-Man, Miles Morales: Spider-Man, Spider-Verse vs. Venomverse, Spectacular Spider-Men, All New Venom.

Avengers: Easily recognizable by people introduced to Marvel by the movies.

Current books: Avengers, Hulk and Doctor Strange, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Vision & Scarlet Witch, Immortal Thor, Amadeus Cho, Sam Wilson: Captain America, West Coast Avengers.

THE BIG CROSSOVER: A few times a year, Marvel throws a monkey wrench into the works by having a giant crossover event that messes with the continuity of all the books. It's annoying, but limited in duration... well... until the next BIG CROSSOVER.

Current books: Doom's Division, Doom Academy, Fantastic Four, Superior Avengers, Thunderbolts: Doomstrike, Doctor Strange of Asgard, One World Under Doom, Red Hulk.

Alternate Universes: Technically Marvel characters, but outside the plotlines of the normal Marvel Universe. Generally self contained.

Current books: Ultimate (Fill in the Blank, X-Men, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Ultimates), Daredevil: Cold Day in Hell (really good!), Predator vs. Spider-Man, Gwenpool, Hellverine, Deadpool, Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe One Last Time, It's Jeff the Land Shark, Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider, Godzilla vs. Spider-Man, Hellhunters (good book!), TVA (REALLY good!), What If?

OTHER: Not neatly fitting into the above categories.

Current books: Fantastic Four, Punisher, New Champions, Moon Knight: Fist of Khonshu, Infinity Watch, Daredevil.

[–] D61@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago

At this point, anywhere. Once you get to a point that things are being referenced that you haven't read, then you go back and find the referenced issue.

You also might want to specifically search for a series that had a limited arc so there's a finite amount of issues to read through.

And if you don't care about "cannon", I remember loving the "What If?" and "What The--!?" series. Very much has the vibes of kids talking about "What if the Wolverine was also The Hulk" ...

[–] Pistcow@lemm.ee 1 points 1 week ago

https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/the-issue-that-started-it-all-marvel-comics-1