Introduction to Comics

How to Get Into Comic Books (13:40) | Patrick Willems

Consider your intent/commitment. Think about your favorite shows, movies, books, etc. Do you seek quality storytelling or encyclopedic Marvel knowledge? Plan to collect? How deep are you willing to dive?

Don’t try to read everything at once. There’s too much. Forget about catching up, continuity, universes, and timelines. Older comics can be an acquired taste for modern audiences, so 1st appearances/early origins may not be ideal starting points. Creative teams change often, characters get re-worked, and origins are re-told. Remember, there are many other great characters, creators, publishers, and genres to explore.

Pick an interesting character/team and seek their best stories. Don’t get stuck preparing to read. Focus on acclaimed, self-contained, and complete stories. You may encounter an unexplained reference/character/event—just ride along or Wiki.

Events/crossovers can be fun and/or tedious. Sometimes, company-wide stories interrupt smaller stories and your favorite characters' personalities change briefly. They are most appreciated by readers well-versed in relevant continuity. Regardless, you may want to familiarize with major plot points.

Discover your preferences and let them guide you. Do you like: old/new comics? Specific genres? Specific writers? Cartoony/realistic art? Familiar/weird concepts? References/self-contained? All-ages/mature content? Follow these instincts.

Acquiring comics:

• Digital: Marvel Unlimited ($10/month for everything but newest 6 months), Comixology, e-library (free), webcomic (free)
  
• Print (collected editions): instocktrades, ISBNS, library (free)
  
• Print (singles): midtowncomics, mycomicshop, DCBS, local store
  
  

  Recommendations
  

  
  Modern Characters/Teams (1994+):
  
  

• Alias (Jessica Jones) | #1-28 | 2001 | Brian Michael Bendis
  
• Ultimates, Ultimates 2 | #1-13, #1-13 | 2002 | Mark Millar
  
• Avengers, New Avengers | #500-503, #1, #1-64 | 2004 | Brian Michael Bendis
  
• Avengers, New Avengers | #1-44, #1-33 | 2012 | Jonathan Hickman | Hickman
  
• Black Panther | #1-62 | 1998 | Christopher Priest
  
• Captain America | #1-50, 600-619, #1-6, #1-19 | 2005 | Ed Brubaker
  
• Captain Marvel | #1-17, 1-12 | 2012 | Kelly Sue DeConnick
  
• Daredevil | #16-19, 26-81 | 2000 | Brian Michael Bendis
  
• Daredevil | #1-36, 1-18 | 2011 | Mark Waid
  
• Deadpool | #0-33 | 1996 | Joe Kelly
  
• Doctor Strange: The Oath | #1-5 | 2006 | Brian K. Vaughan
  
• Fantastic Four, FF | #570-588, 600-611, 1-23 | 2009 | Jonathan Hickman | Hickman
  
• Guardians of the Galaxy | #1-25 | 2008 | Abnett, Lanning, et al. | Cosmic
  
• Hawkeye | #1-22 | 2012 | Matt Fraction
  
• Immortal Iron Fist | #1-16 | 2006 | Brubaker & Fraction
  
• Inhumans | #1-12 | 1998 | Paul Jenkins
  
• Iron Man: Extremis | #1-6 | 2005 | Warren Ellis
  
• Invincible Iron Man | #1-33, 500-527 | 2008 | Matt Fraction
  
• Marvels | #0-4 | 1994 | Kurt Busiek | Start here if you can’t decide
  
• Moon Knight: From the Dead | #1-6 | 2014 | Warren Ellis
  
• Ms. Marvel | #1-19, 1-ongoing | 2014 | G. Willow Wilson
  
• Planet Hulk | #92-105 | 2006 | Greg Pack
  
• Punisher Max | Born, #1-60 | 2004 | Garth Ennis
  
• Thor: God of Thunder | #1-25 | 2012 | Jason Aaron
  
• Ultimate Spider-Man | #1-133 | 2000 | Brian Michael Bendis
  
• Vision | #1-12 | 2015 | Tom King
  
• New X-Men | #114-154 | 2001 | Grant Morrison
  
• Astonishing X-Men | #1-24 | 2004 | Joss Whedon
  
• Uncanny X-Force | #1-35 | 2010 | Rick Remender
  
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  Suggestions to improve this guide are welcome. Check out the guide to the comic universe in the /r/Marvel sidebar for more info.
  

I'd recommend The Ultimates and its sequel, The Ultimates 2. It's based off of The Avengers, but it takes place in The Ultimate Universe, which features more modern "remakes" of most of Marvel's more popular heroes.

Don't give him The Ultimates 3, though. That was a fucking joke.

• 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

Getting into superhero comics in particular can be overwhelming. There's so many variations and choices. I recommend reading self-contained trade paperbacks that have a complete storyline in them. If you want to read The Avengers my recommendation would be The Ultimates by Mark Millar. My understanding is those books were influential in making the movies. The character interaction is fun and they speak in a natural and modern way. If anything it's the book that made me really like Captain America.


Get [the whole collection] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0785143874/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1498913059&sr=8-3&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=the+ultimates+mark+millar&dpPl=1&dpID=51KUkhW3gPL&ref=plSrch). It's inexpensive and a great read.

Ok, so I got into comics with ultimate spiderman, and I think at the minute I have in my collection every single tpb, except for the first big runs on fantastic four and xmen (although I have read the older xmen). Ill give you a breakdown of what I like and dislike:


Ultimate spiderman - By far the best thing to come out of the ultimate line imo. The first 7 or 8 volumes are some of my favorite comics ever, and the Bendis/Bagley team that ran for ~120 issues I think was so good. The fact that Bendis has got to write the entire run gives it a great sense of character and character development for peter and his friends.
Post ultimatum, spider man got even better when it cemented a fantastic sort of team-up/wayward teen setup with peter, kitty pryde, bobby drake and johnny storm.
Deat of Spiderman is a fantastic arc as well, while the new stuff hasnt blown me away, but I do like it quite a bit.


Apart from spiderman, ultimates has to take the second spot. The entire ultimates vol1. (I think thats the book I have) is fantastic, and I think when you read it its great to see the effect it has had on some of the other marvel brands, (most notably the avengers movie).

In terms of the new books. I think cutting down to 3 titles was a good idea, as the continuity remained more manageable, and crossovers like Divided we fall worked quite well. I really like how they are trying to tell different stories with different characters (in some cases only the names are taken from the main universe anymore, which i have no problem with, its a little bit cheesy but whatever). I think its nice to see so many good writers and artists on these books, ( Humphries, Hickman, Brian Wood and Bendis being the most recent I have read) showing that its not just some embarrassing second string universe to marvel. I havent started reading Hunger yet, but I am interested to see if they wrap up the universe as some rumors have stated. I think It might be a good idea if done properly, and it would be nice to say i can finish the collection. Personally I have started reading a lot of X books with marvel NOW, so im less interested in the ultimate side of things anymore ( glad theres only 3 books to follow)

edit: actually one thing that really annoyed me about xmen recently was the tease at the re-intro of magneto and professor x, which seems to have been completely forgotten about. I hope they come back to that.

Ultimates (2002) #1-13 by Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch

Ultimates Vol. 1

New Avengers Vol. 1

Avengers by Hickman Vol. 1

​

These are the cheaper smaller collections

​

Superman: Red Son is the best Superman story I've ever read. This is coming from an asshole that dresses like Clark Kent on a regular basis.

Mark Millar also managed to jumpstart the Avengers franchise 2 years ago, cast Sam Jackson as Nick Fury, AND rework Captain America from a militant symbol from the 1941 into the most likable motherfucker on the planet in his graphic novel Ultimates. Ultimates 2 was also very good, but #3 was not Mark Millar and it kinda sucked.

He did a Wolverine story called Old Man Logan that was great. Fun fact, he also wrote the comic book that was adapted into the Angelina Jolie film Wanted. In my opinion, his best work peaked at Marvel's Civil War event.

The basic story went like this: some D-List supers blow up a small town in New England, which sparks the American public to push for a superhero registration act. Iron Man thinks that this trend represents the natural evolution of superheroes, so he supports it. Captain America, being the dashing badass that he is, claims that this directly defies the American dream and decides to go against it. This pits the entire superhero community against itself. The event had ramifications that were felt by every Marvel comic book for years afterwards, and it also sparked Marvel as a company to begin running big, over the top events every year (there were events before this, but this was when Marvel realized that they could cash in BIG on summer events. I'm not too happy about this, because I'd rather just read comics without having to keep up with the goddamn news in a fictional reality. Not my cuppa tea).

After Civil War, Mark Millar got a big head about his work. Prior to this, the general understanding was that he liked shock value, but his mentor Grant Morrison (arguably the best writer in the business) was filtering his ideas and more or less proofreading his scripts. However, once he got famous, he basically disgraced Morrison in public and decided he was better off alone. Nowadays, Millar only writes comics as storyboards for movie pitches (he's admitted this, I'm not accusing). It's not necessarily a bad way to write comics, but his style is more chauvinistic than anything.

He's his own biggest fan. That said, he wrote some DAMN good comics way back when.

Does that answer your question?

Planet Hulk is amazing. Fully recommend. Civil War might be tough to start with because it fully encapsulates the majority of the Marvel U. Not to mention that their summer events are best if you can read EVERY tie in which is nearly impossible. Civil War was phenomenal...if you read every single civil war tie in and spinoff. If you only read "Civil War" the main story (it's like, what, 8 issues? I can't even remember) it's horribly underwhelming.
Honestly your best option may be to get them The Ultimates vol. 1. The MCU is heavily influenced by/based on the Ultimate universe, so much so that Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch (the author and writer) have a special thank you in some of the movie's credits. Ultimates vol. 1 and vol. 2 are some extremely solid comics with breathtaking art and a really neat take on the Marvel universe. Ultimates vol. 3 by Jeoh Loeb and Joe Madureira is abysmal. Avoid it like the plague. But vol 1 and 2 got me into comics after the slump of the 90s.

Oh hey OP, it's not DC but you may be interested in The Ultimates, a modern, dark take on the Avengers

Oh dear, idk about it then. I'll have to see
Is this the first comic in the Ultimates series?
http://www.amazon.com/Ultimates-Ultimate-Collection-Mark-Millar/dp/0785143874/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371067052&sr=1-1&keywords=the+ultimates

This is the run they're currently talking about. It's really good. After the first two trades, it becomes this series, Ultimates 2.


There's also the original Ultimates which was a early 2000s modern reboot of The Avengers, and served as a big part of what helped bring the Avengers back into the comics spotlight. The first two series, Ultimates 1 and Ultimates 2 are really good.