Marvel comics

[ukdane]

I've previously posted that I don't go in for Marvel comics.
Having said that I have purchased some graphic novels, and the few I have bought and read, I have enjoyed. (Morrison's New X Men, Weadon's Astonishing X-Men, Brubacker's Captain America, and Vol1 of Ennis' Punisher).  
So I'm begning to think I might have made an error in Judgement, and maybe I should be buying some titles.
The question is what? Should I just follow one character, or should I follow a creative team?

Help me out, list your three favorite Ongoing monthly Marvel titles below:


(I don't count Brubacker and Philips' Criminal which is part of the Icon line- as I do collect that).

[the shutdown man]

I enjoy Marvel comics, but I just find it too hard to pick any one particular one up and start reading, since they're all so interwoven and they don't seem to have any real gap between the stories that you can jump in.

For example, I really want to read the Marvel Civil War, but there was no way in hell I was gonna buy every single comic involved in it. Thus, I waited for it to be collected in graphic novel form, and then I find that there are about twelve GNs, some prologues, some epilogues, some parallel stories, and I don't know how much of it is the actual Civil War. It's too damn twisty.

[The Adventurer]

Nope,Marvel's pretty much over all terrible right now.


You guys might dig Annihilation and its sequel Annihilation Conquest (which is going on right now) for some good old fashion cosmic heroing (and the good 2000AD kind, not the Jim Starlin 90s Marvel kind). Maybe Nova as well. Dan Abnett works on all of those, so there's some tooth alumni involvement there.

Spurrier's Silver Surfer: In Thy Name is pretty cool too.

But everything Marvel Universe Earth Proper is 10 shades of shit.

[AlexF]

I must confess that I have read and continue to read a lot of Marvel Comics. If you want to read Civil War, you may as well just buy the main trade. The tie-in stuff is only really of interest if you already know and care about the characters, I'd say. Read Civil War: Front Line if you want a slightly more intelligent approach t go along with the action and grunting of Mark Millar's central book.

If you want to jump in to a random Marvel comic, I'd say they're all reasonably accessible, as long as you don't mind not getting a few in jokes from time to time. Frankly a good editor should make sure all new comics are accessible.

My top three recommendations (on top of the excellent but already mentioned Captain America) right now are:

Amazing Spider-Man
Ms Marvel
Mighty Avengers

Good clean fun in all of them, and yes there's a lot of continuity to follow if you want to, but I'm pretty confident they'd be good reads to anyone who's never heard of any of the main characters before.

I'd have recommended X-Factor, but that's in the middle of a cross-over with all the other x-books right now, should be back to normal in a month or two.

[The Adventurer]

Amazing Spider-Man is GARBAGE now the whole One-More-Day debacle has gone down. And Mighty Avengers is written by that hack Bendis.

[ukdane]

I just find it too hard to pick any one particular one up and start reading, since they're all so interwoven

Shutdown: You've nailed the reason for me previously being so anti- marvel (and for that matter why I dropped all DC Universe titles).

I notice Amazing Spider-man #546 is bascially a jumping on point as three titles are being combined into one.

Astonishing X-Men is being relaunched soon as Astonishing X-Men: Second Stage.

Maybe these two titles would be good jumping on points (I nearly started getting Astonishing when Weadon took over, based on Morrison's New X-men, but puled out at the last minute).

I suppose the other option is to just wait and buy various trades when they're released.

[Satanist]

Theres 2 different series of Ennis Punisher you can get as GN.

Theres the normal Marvel Knights collections which feature other Marvel characters (Spiderman, Wolverine, etc) and are  good for a laugh.

It was then rebooted as MAX collections which are far grittier stories and a lot swearier.

I would recommend both.

[Matt Timson]

"Amazing Spider-Man is GARBAGE now the whole One-More-Day debacle has gone down."

Hasn't there been, like, one issue out, with a new creative team, since OMD?  I can't officially comment, having not read that comic myself, but it seems a bit soon to be branding it 'garbage', surely?

[the shutdown man]

"I suppose the other option is to just wait and buy various trades when they're released."

That's more or less what I do, just buy trades of the major Marvel or DC events.

The last Marvel title I bought on a month by month basis was the Dark Tower comic book series last year, but only because A) I'm a huge fan of the books and B) It was a mini-series so guaranteed no crossovers, or running on for months on end.

[Bico]

I'm not sure about the whole 'no jumping-on point' thing - Marvel have extensive Story So Far recaps in all their books on page 1, and have for several years now - I assume because most of their output is written for the growing trade reprint market rather than individual issues.  Worth checking out are Captain America, The Initiative, She-Hulk, Runaways (if and when they ever decide to put an issue out), and Ennis' Punisher - although Ennis leaves the title in a couple of months and there's no-one working for Marvel who can come close, so god knows what the book will be like then.  There's always Matt Fraction's Punisher: War Journal, but it's a bit naff, as it tries to be the Marvel Knights series that Ennis did years ago, but without the same ear for dialogue or irony (which I freely admit amounts to several variations of "Oh no, I - who have killed with bullets - have been killed *by* bullets!").

It's been mentioned above, but I'm not as furious as a great many are about Spidey's 'Brand New Day' thing - though you'd have to be a certified mental patient to be as angry as some of the fans are - but it does come across as immensely dickless storytelling to just push the reset button when the franchise is written into a corner by a writing pool clearly out of ideas, but unwilling to step aside for younger hands who'd chew off a nut to get the opportunity to work on Marvel's flagship character.  The post-reset books have been okay so far, but not a patch on Ultimate Spidey, or the self-contained Spider-Man Adventures - which kind of backs up my belief that the main spidey writers and editors - rather than the characters - have run out of steam.

[Marbles]

Ennis' run on Preacher is about to end (at 55 I think) so no point jumping on now - get the trades or wait for an Omnibus (thats what I'm doing).

Otherwise favourites are (& excluding the aforementioned Captain America - again sit it out for the inevitable 2nd Omnibus):-

Immortal Iron Fist (Brubaker again, kung-fu goodness)

Daredevil (yes yet more Brubaker stuff. He the man at Marvel these days).

New Avengers (Bendis - 'nuff said).

Otherwise 'Nova' by 2K's very own Dan Abnett gets a lot of rave reviews.

[Marbles]

Oh and mark your diary for this summer because apparently there will be an Omnibus of Brian Michael Bendis' run on Daredevil (just prior to the current Brubaker run).

This run was astoundingly good, best thing in comics for a very long time. Outside of 2000AD of course :0)

[monty--]

Marvel died after Secret Wars.

[I, Cosh]

Theres 2 different series of Ennis Punisher you can get as GN.

I was thinking about getting some of this, but then I discovered the whole more than one comic thing. What's the best one to start with?

And regarding Marvel: it's instructive that, when you posted that list of stuff that's out this week,  it didn't even occur to me to look at the Marvel section. I think the last Marvel comic I bought was Daredevil #233.

[eggonlegs]

eternals gn Gaimen and J. Romita enjoyed it, exiles - have got most these in collected book form and really enjoyed em. bought some DC ones recently and just havent got off on them and the paper stock they are printed on is crap