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.
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.