Reddit reviews Iron Man: Extremis

• The Dark Knight draws heavily from The Long Halloween and plenty of the Joker's lines are taken straight out of a prose issue collected here. There's also the obvious influence of The Killing Joke and The Man Who Laughs. The Killing Joke was also the primary influence on Tim Burton's Batman.
  
  
• Batman Begins draws from a number of stories include Year One, Blind Justice and The Man Who Falls which is collected here.
  
  
• Captain America: The Winter Soldier was based on the fairly recent Ed Brubaker run which is phenomenal.
  
  
• The Dark Knight Rises combines elements of Knightfall, No Man's Land and The Dark Knight Returns. The Dark Knight Returns is also a major influence on the upcoming Batman V Superman.
  
  
• The Avengers mainly draws from the original first issue of The Avengers, which is collected here and retold again here in a modern setting, as well as The Ultimates. There are plenty of shots that feel like they were lifted right out of The Ultimates. On a side note, Joss also wrote the introduction to the book years ago and it was through doing this that he figured out exactly why the Avengers work.
  
  
• The X-Men movies tend to draw more from the 80's, especially Chris Claremont's run. X-Men 2 draws heavily from Gods Loves, Man Kills. X-Men 3 is loosely based off of The Dark Phoenix Saga as well as Joss Whedon's relatively recent Astonishing X-Men. The Wolverine draws from Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's [Wolverine mini-series] and Days of Future Past is based on, you guessed it, Day of Future Past. Even though X-Men: First Class takes it's name from the comic of the same name it has more in common with the early Stan Lee stuff. X-Men Origins: Wolverine draws from several comics include Wolverine's Origin mini-series and Weapon X. The first X-Men movie isn't really based off any particular arc although it did heavily influence Ultimate X-Men.
  
  
• The upcoming Daredevil TV series seems to be drawing heavily from Frank Miller's run, particularly his origin story The Man Without Fear. While Miller's main run took place in the late 70's/early 80's The Man Without Fear came out in the 90's.
  
  
• Guardians of the Galaxy takes its line-up from the 2004 series but the plot of the movie is all its own.
  
  
• Avenger: Age of Ultron seems to be an original story that's taking it's cues, at least in part, from Ultron Unlimited which is collected here.
  
  
• Man of Steel was heavily influenced by John Byrne's 80's reboot although its structure is heavily modelled on the 2010 graphic novel Earth One. There are also bits and pieces taken from Birthright, Secret Origin and All-Star Superman.
  
  
• Iron Man 3 certainly takes its cues from Extremis but a lot of it is just pure Shane Black. The first Iron Man isn't based on a particular storyline but Tony's origin stuff in Afghanistan is almost identical to the flashbacks in Extremis that revamp Tony's origin for a modern context. Iron Man 2 borrows a little from Demon in a Bottle and Armor Wars but ultimately does its own thing.
  
  
• The writer of the Fantastical Four reboot has mentioned that they've been influenced by Ultimate Fantastic Four.
  
  
• Ant-Man follows an original story but is primarily influenced by the Scott Lang Ant-Man books from the late 70's/early 80's.
  
  
• The Thor movies aren't based on any particular storyline but they are vaguely influenced by Walter Simon's run as well as J. Michael Straczynski's run
  
  
• Green Lantern draws heavily from Geoff John's run, especially his near-perfect origin story Secret Origin
  
  
• AKA Jessica Jones is based on the incredible Alias.
  
  EDIT: Formatting

Silent War, if you can find a copy. It was the first Inhumans-centred story I read, and I highly recommend it.

I'm pretty sure Iron Man: Extremis was my first Iron Man story, and I've since gone and read the whole Iron Man catalogue (still working on the annuals though).

I'll second /u/redeyej3dii 's Matt Fraction suggestion and also recommend checking out Armor Wars. This collection features the leadup to Armor Wars. Armor Wars II isn't as essential, but it's still enjoyable. CBR has a good rundown of Iron Man stories too. Enjoy!

The Marvel Universe can be daunting to get into with so much history involved but it's definitely worthwhile. Before you start buying physical books without knowing what's what, I'd suggest trying a Marvel Unlimited subscription ($10 a month / $70 for a year).

Explore through the tons of books on there, or if you want to be a bit more thorough you can use it in conjunction with this site.

As for recommendations... Iron Man: Extremis is a good jumping on point. A lot of what you see in the IM films was lifted directly from that book. I've never been much of a Hawkeye fan, but I really enjoyed Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon.

For the longest time I had stopped reading anything that was not work related ... then ... the first Iron Man movie came out. Iron Man was one of my favorite comic book titles when I was young, so I went out and accidentally picked up one of the greatest Iron Man stories ever: extremis. Get it here from amazon. I've been reading a lot of comics since :-)

I have been reading comic books since about 2006 and here is my take.

Movie Tie-in Comics:

Avengers Prelude: Fury's Big Week

Iron Man 3 The Movie Prelude

Marvel's the Avengers: Black Widow Strikes

Avengers: Road to Marvel's The Avengers

There is also a Thor 2: The Dark World prelude comic currently being released.

Main Stream(616) Comics:

Hawkeye, Vol. 1: My Life as a Weapon by Matt Fraction is amazing and Matt Fraction is currently write this so it is ongoing.

Invincible Iron Man, Vol. 1: The Five Nightmares by Matt Fraction

Iron Man: Extremis by Warren Ellis is used parts of IM3.

Captain America Vol. 1: Winter Soldier, Book One by Ed Brukaber This will get you started on Brukaber's run with writing Captain America, his whole run is amazing.

For Thor check out this IGN Article

Planet Hulk and World War Hulk are good crossover events.

"Ultimate Universe" Comics:

The Ultimate Universe was created by Marvel to show what would happen if the heroes began poping up today and puts modern twist on heroes. For example image your grandfathers WWII GI Joe mindset in the body of a 26 year old for Captain America.

Ultimates Vol. 1, Ultimates Vol. 2, and The Ultimates 2: Ultimate Collection by Mark Millar are fantastic.


Edit: I should add that you should go and find your local comic book store.