Why is 'Higher...' still labeled volume 1 I wonder? Anyway, could you also tell me (possibly with a link) which Guardians of the Galaxy trade to start with?
What happened is that after The Enemy Within, Marvel decided to relaunch the series with a new #1 issue to try and bump up sales a bit. Think of HFFM as volume one of "season two" of Captain Marvel.
Anyhow, for Guardians of the Galaxy, you should start with the Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning series:
If you can get ahold of the Annihilation and Annihilation: Conquest events which led up to that series, I highly recommend them as well. Refer to this reading guide for more Marvel space adventures in this time period: http://i.imgur.com/N7OXfyI.jpg
That's exactly what I was looking for. I imagine, like a lot of people, I'm going to start cutting my way through Marvel TPB based on the success of the movies so I'd like to know which order to read them in.
Can anyone recommend a good run on Black Panther? He's popped up in a few issues I've read and in some of the animated stuff I've watched and I'd like to get more of a feel for him.
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Gonna try to take advantage of black friday to find some more stuff. Which is the relaunch and title with She-Hulk having dumb lawyer adventures? Cause I need that. Keeping track of these different series can be terrible sometimes.
Also the one where Iron Man fights the Mandarin and tears his magic rings out of his spine. Cause that is heavy metal.
The new Winter Soldier series is good right? Cool action and black ops adventures?
Hey you guys. Any suggestions for my 8 (almost 9) year old daughter. She brought home, and powered through Cleopatra in space which looks pretty adorable. I was hoping there might be something that is marvel based. We've watched the movies and seen a few of the cartoons like the Disney Spider Man and a few others I can't recall currently.
Marvel isn't a requirement however, we just have the monthly subscription app thing.
For Marvel stuff, you're going to want to look for stuff with the Marvel Adventures branding, that was a great line of all-ages comics Marvel was putting out in the mid-2000s. Likewise, there was a series of all-ages Power Pack minis in the late 00s that would be great for her. I also think the current Ms. Marvel series would be good for an eight year old, as well as the upcoming Squirrel Girl series that's launching next month.
For non-Marvel stuff, check out Lumberjanes, and if she likes Adventure Time, the Adventure Time comics are great.
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Bravest Warriors is good if she's watched Adventure Time (or not, it's still good on it's own.
Thor: The Mighty Avenger is also very good, along with X-Men First Class. Maybe more action oriented but they're solid well written stories that aren't really violent.
I can't second Lumberjanes enough - it's absolutely fantastic and just finished it's first 8 issue storyline.
Along with that if you can find the series of Lookouts by the Penny Arcade guys it's a pretty fun for kids. Adventure Time is really good too and has a bunch of short side series that can be picked up in compilations like the Fiona and Cake issues or (my favorite) Marceline and the Scream Queens. The My Little Pony series are also fun reads.
My son (10 years old) also picks up the Doodle Jump comic based on the phone game and swears that's really fun (I haven't read it), Teen Titans Go and the Adventures of Gumball which is his current favorite.
Hey you guys. Any suggestions for my 8 (almost 9) year old daughter. She brought home, and powered through Cleopatra in space which looks pretty adorable. I was hoping there might be something that is marvel based. We've watched the movies and seen a few of the cartoons like the Disney Spider Man and a few others I can't recall currently.
Marvel isn't a requirement however, we just have the monthly subscription app thing.
I want the new Squirrel Girl series, but I want it in print. Is there any place I can order a subscription online or am I going to have to go to my local comic shop?
Hey Guys, looking for some advice on what stuff to pick up next;
(Hopefully all my terminology is right, new to the whole comic scene)
Iron Man: Have read the "Extremis" arc (which I believe is Iron Man vol4 Issue 1-7), I was then advised to skip forward to Invincible Iron Man "The Five Nightmares (IIM vol 1 issue 0-7). Have loved both and want more. Should I continue with Invincible Iron Man "Most Wanted #1 & #2", or is there another TPB I should check out?
Deadpool: I read the two mini-series "The Circle Chase" and "Sins of the Past", and they were OK. Should I move on to "Classic Deadpool" which I beleve is chronologically next, or is it worth skipping forward at all? I heard good things about "Cable and Deadpool", but is it better to know the classic stuff first?
Gambit / X-Men: Would love to read some X-Men arcs, and would really like something with Gambit. Is there a good jumping in point where he features without needing to know too much background?
For Iron Man, you should definitely continue with Matt Fraction's run. Just so you know, Secret Invasion happens basically between Five Nightmares and Most Wanted, so if you haven't read that, you may want to read the synopsis on Wikipedia before diving in.
For Deadpool, I think most fans would recommend going with Classic Deadpool by Joe Kelly, because that's where the character really becomes what we know today as Deadpool. Cable and Deadpool is definitely good too though.
For Gambit, you ought to just check out Gambit's recent solo series by James Asmus. It only lasted 17 issues, but that's three paperbacks of content, and it was pretty good. Here's the first volume: http://amzn.com/0785165479 The only X-Men team series that featured Gambit much at all was Peter Milligan's run on X-Men back around 2005, which was alright.
Thanks @Centipede Damascus, I read The synopsis of Secret Invasion then started (and finished) World's Most Wanted. Digital comics are worse for the wallet than Warhammer!
For x-men, what are the recommended arcs (even if Gambit doesn't feature)
I like to recommend Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men, though it is fairly controversial. Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men is a bit more widely acclaimed. Rick Remender's Uncanny X-Force is widely considered one of the best runs ever. Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, and Kieron Gillen all had runs on Uncanny X-Men that are really good. And don't miss out on Jason Aaron's work on Weapon X, Wolverine, and Wolverine and the X-Men. It's good stuff.
Deadpool Classic vol 1 is actually just the first two miniseries, plus the first issue of his 1997 ongoing, so it probably isn't worth paying 10-20 bucks for a single issue for you, you may want to start with Classic vol 2 and read a synopsis of issue 1.
@Centipede Damascus Sorry to bug you, but can I get some more advice on X-Men? All your suggestions look great, and I had a look at a few "where to start" articles, but still feel unable to take the plunge. Between x-men, x-force, cyclops' x-men, wolverine x-men, time travelling x-men etc etc there just seem so many arcs that are dependant on what came first.
What I really loved about Extremis (and Five Nightmares I guess) for Ironman was that you could go in blind and still 'get' the story. Is there anything like that for x-men, like a specific TPB I could get as a standalone? (comixology or Amazon link would be great). I really want to take the plunge, but Xmas seems such a tangled web to an outsider.
One of the things I loved about my hardcover of Whedon's run on Astonishing X-Men is it starts off with a section titled something like 'Everything You Need To Know About the X-Men But Don't Have Time To Read 45 Years Of Back Issues To Find Out' - not sure if that's included in other formats.
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Morrison's New X-Men is one of only a few big, clean breaks in X-Men continuity, and is intended as a soft-reboot ignoring almost everything after Days of Future Past (Morrison's pitch document is included in one of the trades). Almost every other run that @Centipede Damascus referenced reuses concepts and characters that Morrison introduces. Even Whedon's Astonishing X-Men serves as a Season 2 of New X-Men; it's set immediately afterward and brings back some villains and plot-threads from Morrison's run.
Fraction's X-Men, Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men, and Remender's Uncanny X-Force also all use a ton of Morrison's concepts and characters.
So I'd agree with starting with Morrison's stuff. If you enjoy it, keep reading and then head right into Whedon's stuff after. From there, you'll have a lot of options, depending on your interests. You could just keep going from where Whedon leaves off, moving through Brubaker's and Fraction's runs of Uncanny X-Men, and then into Remender's Uncanny X-Force and the Schism era of Karen Gillen's Uncanny X-Men and Jason Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men, then into AvX and the current Bendis stuff. Or you could probably just skip right to whichever of those you actually wanted to read.
I grabbed this and read through it last night, and to be honest I was underwhelmed. I am not sure what the policy is on comic spoilers from "older" stuff, so will play it safe and throw everything in tags (so I can safely mention plot elements)
The "E for Extermination" story itself was OK... Some Mutant / Xavier clone manages to get hold of a Master Mold, churn out "evolved" Sentinels and cause mass mutant genocide. Then it just sort of... ended. For some reason the Sentinels stopped after their initial target. Throughout the whole arc I kept hitting points where i felt I needed to know more than was being presented. Maybe I am being hypocritical as some stuff I can just take as the new status quo (Jean and Scott being married), but other stuff it irks me to not know the cause (their subsequent marriage problems).
Stuff that felt glossed over included Jean / Scott marriage problems, Scott previously being "possessed", beast saying Xavier was re-motivated... why had he lost his motivation earlier, some weird one-off panel where Scott saw talking cockroaches, Magneto now has his own mutant Island. Back to my own hypocrisy, I was also fine with Scott, Logan, Jean, the Sentinels etc all not having an "introduction", but it bugged me that I had no idea of the backstory for Emma Frost. I guess some of this falls down to 90's cartoon syndrome where some stuff is just in my mind pop-culture knowledge, and other stuff isn't.
Moving onto the the Annual... While the overall story was easy to follow (Chinese General selling a mutant to basically a medical research corp), the actual comic was a pain to read. I kept having to read panels 3 or 4 times to figure out who was speaking, or who was being addressed. (Didn't have this problem with the previous 3 issues). I also didn't really "get" what most people's motivations were, and some things just didn't make sense to me. Wolverine and Domino stole the vault key, but then before they even got to the vault the Chinese General had let the mutant free, and the medical research guy felt tricked? Why did the General release the mutant... he said it was "revenge"? against who? Also... how is having a supernova (or black hole... it seemed to change mid way through because... reasons?) inside your head a "mutant power". Seems more like something that would give you a severe case of instant death.
Again 90's cartoon syndrome kicks in and at least on some levels there is the Human vs Mutant dynamic being a metaphor for straight vs gay. The whole "Third Species" thing felt like a hamfisted Transgender "faction" with the whole "mutant in a human body" speech. To me it felt a bit... offensive (unless I am reading WAYYYY too much into it, which I may be). I don't get why it had to be presented in that way, and felt like it just wanted to scream at the reader "look at us, comics can be progressive too"
Finally, there was one more issue (117) in the TPB which as far as i can tell from Wikipedia isn't the start of the next arc and is just a one off. So, Xavier having endangered the school decides "screw this I need a holiday, I'm off to see my ex who happens to be a alien empress. But wait.. no, it's actually he is being mind controlled... at least for a scene. Was he mind controlled before, or after? This one just felt a mess. As much as I disliked the Annual I could at least see a story in it. Here it felt like the story was "Xavier is a jerk, Emma Frost solves issues by making the crowd *ahem* climax. (Because sure, the people who are protesting against mutants are really going to change their ways after that and not at all become more militant).
To go back to the Iron Many stuff (as it is my only comparison) "Extremis" grabbed me, threw a basic backstory into the mix via flashbacks, and then did it's thing. This made me want to read more. "Five Nightmares" had it's moments of needing to know the past, but those I could just accept as the status quo (Stark as Director of SHIELD) and again took on a story that was mostly self contained. "World's Worst Enemy" was the one I read that needed the most previous knowledge, but that really boiled down to "Alien invasion, Stark screws up, Osbourne now in command" all of which took 30 seconds to find on Wikipedia.
tl;dr Overall I wasn't impressed with New X-Men - at least not as a jumping in point. I never felt invested in the world as too many "who? what? why?" questions kept being presented and breaking immersion, basically leaving no desire to continue that story.
It seems that the best place for me to start would be the beginning - though not the Stan Lee beginning which seems to be poorly received, but the 1975 relaunch. Following a bit more research and found myself looking at the Essentials and Masterworks line.
I think I am correct in thinking that the Essentials are approx 20 issues a book, in black and white, and the line has been discontinued. However the Masterworks are 10 issues a book in colour, and still in production? I am probably going to pick up Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol 1 and work through the "classic" series unless anyone has reason to warn me off the collections? Maybe then the newer stuff will start to "fit" better.
Essentials were discontinued, and softcover masterworks have been as well, leaving only the super expensive hardcover masterworks as a sequential release of old content. Otherwise your stuck with Omnibuses and Epics, which have super disjointed release schedules, or you have to wait for Marvel to collect the content in a random trade, which unless it's Deadpool, has a good chance of not collecting the whole thing.
Well, digital is different case when it comes to availability. When you mentioned essentials, I thought you were just referring to physical media. So yeah, there's a few masterworks on comixology, but if you're doing digital, you'd probably save money if you just got a sub to Marvel Digital Unlimited rather than piecemealing it on comixology.
@Undead Scottsman - Wow, I didn't even know Marvel had that. Looks like a great option - monthly fee but unlimited access to the whole digital back catalog as far as I can tell?
Before I sunk any more money I did a bit more research which unfortunately has left me even more confused. I hope I am not turning this too much into a "teach Khade about X-Men" thread (and if I am, I can move it to PM if anyone is willing?)
Here is my confusion (spoilers due to length)
I thought I had figured out that a lot of the alternative titles (X-Force, X-Factor etc) were just spin-off stories of separate teams / groups. However looking through the Marvel wiki I think there are 2 "chains"?
The seconds seems to start in 1991 with X-Men v2 (1991-01), New X-Men (2001-04), X-Men v2 (2004-08), X-Men Legacy (2008-12)
Are these separate continuities or are they happening alongside one-another? I honestly can't tell!
Assuming they are the same continuity;
How do you know what order to read things in when they are published side by side? e.g. X-Men v2 starts mid way between the run on Uncanny X-Men, so at what point would you stop one and go to the other? Would this be an obvious story point, or are you just expected to "know"
Assuming they are separate continuities;
Which chain would X-Factor / X-Force fit into, or is that a minefield all of its own?
What about universe changing events (Stuff like House of M / M-Day), which "chain" are they part of?
What about crossovers? e.g. X-Men vs Avengers
Which is the "canon" chain?
EDIT: Man, they don't make this whole thing easy. Looking at a random issue... X-Men Regenesis leads on to Uncanny X-Men v2, but takes place after the events of Legacy... so that must mean my two "chains" are connected?
I am so close to writing off X-Men comics as "too confusing", but I can't be the only person in the world who wants to get into them and hasn't followed the series for 50+ years!
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Then you'll want to read Volume 2: Down, then Avengers: The Enemy Within. Higher Further Faster More comes after that.
Anyhow, for Guardians of the Galaxy, you should start with the Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning series:
Guardians of the Galaxy by Abnett & Lanning: The Complete Collection Volume 1
Guardians of the Galaxy by Abnett & Lanning: The Complete Collection Volume 2
If you can get ahold of the Annihilation and Annihilation: Conquest events which led up to that series, I highly recommend them as well. Refer to this reading guide for more Marvel space adventures in this time period: http://i.imgur.com/N7OXfyI.jpg
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Jason Aaron wrote a really good Secret Invasion: Black Panther mini.
And back in the 70s Jack Kirby did a fantastic 12 issue run on Black Panther.
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Also the one where Iron Man fights the Mandarin and tears his magic rings out of his spine. Cause that is heavy metal.
The new Winter Soldier series is good right? Cool action and black ops adventures?
The Iron Man arc you want is the "Haunted" arc from the Knauf Brothers' Iron Man run. It can be found in the collection Iron Man vol. 5: Haunted.
The consensus on the new Winter Soldier series seems to be that the art is gorgeous, but the story is pretty dense. It's not for everyone.
Longshot Saves the Marvel Universe
A+X vol. 1: = Awesome
Superior Foes of Spider-Man vol. 1: Getting the Band Back Together
Archer and Armstrong vol. 1: The Michelangelo Code
Quantum and Woody vol. 1: The World's Worst Superhero Team
Marvel isn't a requirement however, we just have the monthly subscription app thing.
For non-Marvel stuff, check out Lumberjanes, and if she likes Adventure Time, the Adventure Time comics are great.
Thor: The Mighty Avenger is also very good, along with X-Men First Class. Maybe more action oriented but they're solid well written stories that aren't really violent.
Along with that if you can find the series of Lookouts by the Penny Arcade guys it's a pretty fun for kids. Adventure Time is really good too and has a bunch of short side series that can be picked up in compilations like the Fiona and Cake issues or (my favorite) Marceline and the Scream Queens. The My Little Pony series are also fun reads.
My son (10 years old) also picks up the Doodle Jump comic based on the phone game and swears that's really fun (I haven't read it), Teen Titans Go and the Adventures of Gumball which is his current favorite.
Not Marvel, but Bone is great.
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(Hopefully all my terminology is right, new to the whole comic scene)
Iron Man: Have read the "Extremis" arc (which I believe is Iron Man vol4 Issue 1-7), I was then advised to skip forward to Invincible Iron Man "The Five Nightmares (IIM vol 1 issue 0-7). Have loved both and want more. Should I continue with Invincible Iron Man "Most Wanted #1 & #2", or is there another TPB I should check out?
Deadpool: I read the two mini-series "The Circle Chase" and "Sins of the Past", and they were OK. Should I move on to "Classic Deadpool" which I beleve is chronologically next, or is it worth skipping forward at all? I heard good things about "Cable and Deadpool", but is it better to know the classic stuff first?
Gambit / X-Men: Would love to read some X-Men arcs, and would really like something with Gambit. Is there a good jumping in point where he features without needing to know too much background?
For Deadpool, I think most fans would recommend going with Classic Deadpool by Joe Kelly, because that's where the character really becomes what we know today as Deadpool. Cable and Deadpool is definitely good too though.
For Gambit, you ought to just check out Gambit's recent solo series by James Asmus. It only lasted 17 issues, but that's three paperbacks of content, and it was pretty good. Here's the first volume: http://amzn.com/0785165479 The only X-Men team series that featured Gambit much at all was Peter Milligan's run on X-Men back around 2005, which was alright.
For x-men, what are the recommended arcs (even if Gambit doesn't feature)
I like to recommend Grant Morrison's run on New X-Men, though it is fairly controversial. Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men is a bit more widely acclaimed. Rick Remender's Uncanny X-Force is widely considered one of the best runs ever. Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, and Kieron Gillen all had runs on Uncanny X-Men that are really good. And don't miss out on Jason Aaron's work on Weapon X, Wolverine, and Wolverine and the X-Men. It's good stuff.
What I really loved about Extremis (and Five Nightmares I guess) for Ironman was that you could go in blind and still 'get' the story. Is there anything like that for x-men, like a specific TPB I could get as a standalone? (comixology or Amazon link would be great). I really want to take the plunge, but Xmas seems such a tangled web to an outsider.
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Fraction's X-Men, Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men, and Remender's Uncanny X-Force also all use a ton of Morrison's concepts and characters.
So I'd agree with starting with Morrison's stuff. If you enjoy it, keep reading and then head right into Whedon's stuff after. From there, you'll have a lot of options, depending on your interests. You could just keep going from where Whedon leaves off, moving through Brubaker's and Fraction's runs of Uncanny X-Men, and then into Remender's Uncanny X-Force and the Schism era of Karen Gillen's Uncanny X-Men and Jason Aaron's Wolverine and the X-Men, then into AvX and the current Bendis stuff. Or you could probably just skip right to whichever of those you actually wanted to read.
Stuff that felt glossed over included Jean / Scott marriage problems, Scott previously being "possessed", beast saying Xavier was re-motivated... why had he lost his motivation earlier, some weird one-off panel where Scott saw talking cockroaches, Magneto now has his own mutant Island. Back to my own hypocrisy, I was also fine with Scott, Logan, Jean, the Sentinels etc all not having an "introduction", but it bugged me that I had no idea of the backstory for Emma Frost. I guess some of this falls down to 90's cartoon syndrome where some stuff is just in my mind pop-culture knowledge, and other stuff isn't.
Moving onto the the Annual... While the overall story was easy to follow (Chinese General selling a mutant to basically a medical research corp), the actual comic was a pain to read. I kept having to read panels 3 or 4 times to figure out who was speaking, or who was being addressed. (Didn't have this problem with the previous 3 issues). I also didn't really "get" what most people's motivations were, and some things just didn't make sense to me. Wolverine and Domino stole the vault key, but then before they even got to the vault the Chinese General had let the mutant free, and the medical research guy felt tricked? Why did the General release the mutant... he said it was "revenge"? against who? Also... how is having a supernova (or black hole... it seemed to change mid way through because... reasons?) inside your head a "mutant power". Seems more like something that would give you a severe case of instant death.
Again 90's cartoon syndrome kicks in and at least on some levels there is the Human vs Mutant dynamic being a metaphor for straight vs gay. The whole "Third Species" thing felt like a hamfisted Transgender "faction" with the whole "mutant in a human body" speech. To me it felt a bit... offensive (unless I am reading WAYYYY too much into it, which I may be). I don't get why it had to be presented in that way, and felt like it just wanted to scream at the reader "look at us, comics can be progressive too"
Finally, there was one more issue (117) in the TPB which as far as i can tell from Wikipedia isn't the start of the next arc and is just a one off. So, Xavier having endangered the school decides "screw this I need a holiday, I'm off to see my ex who happens to be a alien empress. But wait.. no, it's actually he is being mind controlled... at least for a scene. Was he mind controlled before, or after? This one just felt a mess. As much as I disliked the Annual I could at least see a story in it. Here it felt like the story was "Xavier is a jerk, Emma Frost solves issues by making the crowd *ahem* climax. (Because sure, the people who are protesting against mutants are really going to change their ways after that and not at all become more militant).
To go back to the Iron Many stuff (as it is my only comparison) "Extremis" grabbed me, threw a basic backstory into the mix via flashbacks, and then did it's thing. This made me want to read more. "Five Nightmares" had it's moments of needing to know the past, but those I could just accept as the status quo (Stark as Director of SHIELD) and again took on a story that was mostly self contained. "World's Worst Enemy" was the one I read that needed the most previous knowledge, but that really boiled down to "Alien invasion, Stark screws up, Osbourne now in command" all of which took 30 seconds to find on Wikipedia.
tl;dr Overall I wasn't impressed with New X-Men - at least not as a jumping in point. I never felt invested in the world as too many "who? what? why?" questions kept being presented and breaking immersion, basically leaving no desire to continue that story.
@McFodder - would this be the series in question?
I think I am correct in thinking that the Essentials are approx 20 issues a book, in black and white, and the line has been discontinued. However the Masterworks are 10 issues a book in colour, and still in production? I am probably going to pick up Uncanny X-Men Masterworks Vol 1 and work through the "classic" series unless anyone has reason to warn me off the collections? Maybe then the newer stuff will start to "fit" better.
Before I sunk any more money I did a bit more research which unfortunately has left me even more confused. I hope I am not turning this too much into a "teach Khade about X-Men" thread (and if I am, I can move it to PM if anyone is willing?)
Here is my confusion (spoilers due to length)
One seems to be X-Men (1963-68), Giant Sized X-Men (1975), X-Men (1975-81), Uncanny X-Men (1981-95), Astonishing X-Men (1995), Uncanny X-Men (1995-11), Uncanny X-Men v2 (2012), Uncanny X-Men v3 (2012 - Ongoing)
The seconds seems to start in 1991 with X-Men v2 (1991-01), New X-Men (2001-04), X-Men v2 (2004-08), X-Men Legacy (2008-12)
Are these separate continuities or are they happening alongside one-another? I honestly can't tell!
Assuming they are the same continuity;
- How do you know what order to read things in when they are published side by side? e.g. X-Men v2 starts mid way between the run on Uncanny X-Men, so at what point would you stop one and go to the other? Would this be an obvious story point, or are you just expected to "know"
Assuming they are separate continuities;EDIT: Man, they don't make this whole thing easy. Looking at a random issue... X-Men Regenesis leads on to Uncanny X-Men v2, but takes place after the events of Legacy... so that must mean my two "chains" are connected?
I am so close to writing off X-Men comics as "too confusing", but I can't be the only person in the world who wants to get into them and hasn't followed the series for 50+ years!