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.
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.
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.
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.
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.