Someone just help me understand. Where did the MAIN Marvel comics story start and what does it consist of. Earth-616 to be exact. Cause all this multiverse is really confusing to me.
Fantastic Four #1 is pretty much the start of the modern Marvel age of comics. Some of the stuff from the 40s is still referred to, but the canonicity is pretty loose prior to FF #1.
Sorry to resurrect an old thread. But I've been paging through the Marvel Universe Reading Order and I've realized something. I shouldn't try to read up on EVERYTHING. I'll just read up on certain series. I'm thinking Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, and Captain America. I'm not so sure about Thor. I'm not into Spider Man or X-Men. I don't know weather I should read Avengers though.
i dont think its needed to read all Marvel comics out there. right now while i do plan on checking other Marvel comics (and readsome), i am mainly focused on the Spider-Man stuff right now. so right now why not try and check about characters ur mainly into on.
If you want to get really technical, it would be the first appearance of Namor, the Submariner, in Marvel Comics #1, but it wasn't really a "universe" at that point. The WW2 comics had numerous known / established characters teaming up, like the Defenders. I think it really only started to be a universe in a modern sense, from a universal perspective, around the time of Spider-Man #1, where he meets the FF.
You might want to start with a lot of the eighties material. One of Marvel's golden ages, and the one which has fed into many of the stories since, lasted from 1979 (Demon in a Bottle and the start of the Dark Phoenix Saga) to 1993 (Iron Man #318, the final issue of the Modular Iron Man design and the start of The Crossing). Here's some of the major stories and runs in roughly chronological order and the trades they're in. (Shameless plug: all of the trades I've mentioned below are ones I've reviewed at Collected Editions in the link from my signature.) *The Dark Phoenix Saga, even though you said you're not an X-Men fan, is the most important story ever published by Marvel. It's the start of Wolverine's publicity, the introductions of Kitty Pryde and Emma Frost (and the Dazzler) and of course the death which opened the always-spinning revolving door of death and rebirth. Days of Future Past was published only two or three issues later. Both the Saga and DOFP are collected in trades of the same names along with some issues from around the same time. *For Iron Man, it's best to start with the classic Demon In A Bottle story from the first run of David Michelinie and Bob Layton in 1979. More and more Iron Man stories have been reprinted since the first film so nearly the entire 80s will be collected by the time Avengers 2 comes out. Of these, I'd skip over Denny O'Neil's run and go straight into Armor Wars, which defined Iron Man to this very day. There's a trade coming in a few months called "Stark Wars" which collects the preceding issues, the arc itself and some issues afterwards (the story was originally called Stark Wars instead of Armor Wars). If you can't wait, then get the Armor Wars Prelude and Armor Wars trades. *Walter Simonson's Thor is often hailed as the greatest run in comics. Not just on Thor, but on any comic ever. I find it hard to disagree. He introduced Beta Ray Bill, the noble horse-faced alien who took Thor's powers and later received a hammer of his own. He made the Warriors Three and Balder into viable characters. He created the Casket of Ancient Winters (from the first Thor film) and Malekith (from the second film) and wrote a truly epic tale of Surtur the Fire Demon's invasion of Earth (likely the plot of the third film). So that's how influential this run is. Marvel just released five remastered trades of the run, which are fine, but if you can track down the five "Thor Visionaries: Walter Simonson" trades, you'll see the comics as they were originally presented. *Captain America basically had one writer for most of the eighties: the late, great Mark Gruenwald, who wrote over one hundred issues of Cap. There are a lot of great storylines (and a couple stinkers like Capwolf) but one of the most iconic is collected in a trade called "The Captain". In it, Steve resigns from his post after the military tries to force him to do its bidding. They instead replace him with a slowly unhinging supervillain while Steve dons a black uniform and drops "America" from his name. They switch identities at the end with the newcomer becoming USAgent. *Similarly, Hulk in the eighties was pretty much a one man show under the pen of Peter David. He introduced the multiple personalities angle and had the Grey Hulk as the star for a while, eventually transitioning into the merged and perfect "Professor" Hulk. They'll eventually put out an omnibus for this run, but for now, the "Hulk Visionaries: Peter David" trades are the way to go. They also cross over with his run on X-Factor, which is one of the best X-Men spinoffs. David is still telling their story to this day until the title gets cancelled in a few months. *There were a few different Avengers runs, but the best was Roger Stern. He wrote the definitive "Under Siege" story in which an expanded Masters of Evil roster takes over Avengers Mansion, cripples the team and tortures Jarvis and Hercules. Not only is it a great book on its own, but it also sewed the seeds for the launch of Thunderbolts ten years later. *By 1990, it was time for the return of Thanos after his defeat ~ten years previous (a story collected in, not kidding, half a dozen different trades over the last two years). The way I read the arc was to start with "Silver Surfer: Return of Thanos", followed by "Infinity Gauntlet" and "Infinity Gauntlet Aftermath". All three of those trades plus supporting issues of "Silver Surfer" and "Doctor Strange" are all collected in the shiny new Infinity Gauntlet Omnibus. It's expensive at $125, but you'll pay that much for the three trades and still miss material. Marvel started to go downhill from here as Image's influence slowly grew. Those should get you started and you'll find that they interconnect. For instance, one issue of Iron Man is collected in both the Armor Wars and Captain trades. A few of them note that the cold weather is linked to the Casket of Ancient Winters in Thor. One last thing: skip Secret Wars. It was designed to sell toys and it shows. Some of the action scenes are fun, like Spidey whooping the X-Men single-handedly (and Professor X then wiping it from his memory), but Jim Shooter liked to use a lot of exclamation points! It gets really annoying after a while!
I don't intend on reading the comics themselves. But rather the summaries on the Mavel Comics Database.
You'd get more from reading the comics, summaries are short and don't covey the full plot or writing. A short summery can make a great story sound awful if not presented in the right context.
Damn. This is becoming difficult. I don't really want to purchase any older comics. But, I don't want to read abridged plots either. Stuck between a rock and a hard place here.
I just gave you a reason to. Check their website first, usually they have an inventory of what they have online.
