Help a girl out?
Okay so, I’m a girly girl and my ex boyfriend was a nerdy comic book guy and he introduced me to marvel and Dc and all that stuff, we watched a lot of marvel movies and I got pretty into it.. I want to start collecting some comics but I have no idea where and how to start, I would love some recommendations and suggestions and I’m open to anything.
Commentaires
No shortage of Spiderman stories, but for something slightly recent, I would say check out "superior spiderman' storyline.
For Scarlet Witch, the House of M story is solid.
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*Hulk: Gray* is a very good introduction to the Hulk in the comics. It's not his best ever story, but it covers the character's origin in a really interesting way. It's also available as part of an anthology along with *Daredevil: Yellow*, *Spider-Man: Blue* and *Captain America: White*, which are all worth reading.
“House of M” for Wanda, but for X-Men in general the “Astonishing” run from 2004 is amazing.
“World War Hulk” for Hulk.
There is a site you can get all comics for free. Just use an ad blocker and Google "read comics online". Whenever I want to start reading a new character I google Best Comics for "X" Reddit. And you'll get a ton of good recommendations.
There's a lot of great isolated Deadpool stories. My personal favorites are Dead Presidents, Art of War, & the Killogy (Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe, Deadpool Killustrated, & Deadpool Kills Deadpool).
This is about Heroes for Hire tbh. Don't read Heroes for Hire. It wasn't relevant and it kinda sucked and the women are drawn particularly egregiously, even for the early 2000s.
You can try the recent Scarlet Witch and Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver runs. These are written by Steve Orlando.
Not everyone's cup of tea but for some popcorn flick-type of crazy fun, I'd recommend Hulk by Jeph Loeb. This is where the Red Hulk debuts and he's got some crazy feats of strength here!
If ever you get curious about DC heroes, I'd like to recommend the recent Batman/Deadpool and Deadpool/Batman crossover issues. They're both well-done and lots of fun.
For Spider-Man, I recommend Life Story. It's set in a universe where time moves as normal like in the real world so it reshapes Spider-Man's 80-year comic story into the life of a Peter Parker who lives to his 80s.
Im a big venom fan so i had to recommend king in black, but hickman is also one of the best marvel authors out there
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Marvel/wiki/faq/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Marvel/wiki/faq/)
Also this sub is specifically for the MCU - Marvel Cinematic Universe, a collection of films and series produced by Marvel Studios. I'm sure some people will have recommendations, but r/Marvel or r/marvelcomics are likely to be more helpful. Not trying to police where you post, but those subs are more likely to better answer I would imagine.
You should also say which films you've watched and which characters you like. There's literally tens of thousands of comics, and it's near impossible to guess what you might like with jack to go on.
- If it’s Iron Man then I’d say start by getting an Omnibus of his first appearance in Tales of Suspense #39 and read forward from there until his solo series starts. Both of these should be included in an Iron Man omnibus or epic collection for his first Volume. The books will give you a heads up if Tony is going to appear in Avengers and, if you’re interested, you can pick up the first volume of Avengers in an epic collection or omnibus and read concurrently along side Tales of Suspense.
- If you’re interested in the Marvel Universe in general, then I’d say start with the Fantastic Four by reading Fantastic Four (1961) #1 and go forward from there. There are omnibuses and epic that collect the start of the seminal Stan and Jack run that should include the first 18 to 19 issues as well as the first annual.
- If you want to read with Spider-Man, start with Amazing Fantasy #15 in an epic collection or omnibus that collects the first volume of Spider-Man by Lee and Ditko for the first few issues of the Amazing Spider-Man and the last issue of Amazing Fantasy.
If you don’t want to pay, there’s plenty of sites online to read if you’re willing to sail the seas
Self Contained story without requiring too much outside reading.
Also If you just want to read them, Marvel Unlimited app is great.
Captain Marvel 2019 run, pretty fun and gets you caught up with Carol and some new heroes. Nothing too confrontational.
Runaways vol 1, from 2005. A very fresh and witty team of teenagers with strong female presence.
For Nightwing, I strongly recommend Tom Taylor's quite recent run. Start with Leaping Into the Light and go from there if you like.
You could also just peruse bins at your local comicbook shop and pick out some titles or covers that look interesting.
I started getting into comics with Marvel, then checked out some DC, then got into the wider world of comics. Marvel's a great place to start with the medium, but make sure once you've read a couple things that you check out publishers outside of the big two, and genres outside of superheroes. There's a whole wide world of comics out there!
With that out of the way, here are some recommendations.
**Marvel**: There's gonna be tonnes of recommendations for modern stories from other users, so I'll throw out some older ones. The silver age (for Marvel this starts in 1961) isn't for everyone, but it's got such a cheesy charm to it a lot of the time, it's worth a try to see if it's up your alley. *The Amazing Spider-Man* and *Fantastic Four* are the most consistent series, followed by *The Avengers* imo. For the bronze age (starts in the early-mid 70s) I'd recommend Chris Claremont's run on *X-Men*, Walt Simonson's *Thor*, and I've had a wonderful time with *The Avengers*.
**DC**: The new Absolute universe could be a great place to start. It's a brand new continuity with new twists on classic characters, and has been getting incredibly positive responses. Otherwise for Superman, try *Superman: For All Seasons, Superman: Birthright,* and *All Star Superman*. For Batman, try *Batman: Year One*, *The Long Halloween* (and all of Tim Sale/Jeph Loeb's collaborations. they have work for both DC and Marvel), and Scott Snyder's run on *Batman*. Snyder is also writing *Absolute Batman*, so if you like one then definitely check out the other. I also loved *Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow*, which is being adapted into a movie this year. You also said you like Harley Quinn in a comment, so it may be worth checking out the current ongoing *Poison Ivy* series by G. Willow Wilson.
**Vertigo/Black Label**: This is an imprint of DC. That means it's still published by DC, but has a different branding on it to distinguish it from mainline DC books. These are often not superhero books, and skew darker/more horror. *The Sandman* is kind of set in the main DC universe, but is mostly disconnected. It's a story about stories, and about change. *The Nice House on the Lake* is a horror mystery about a group of friends who are told, at their friend's lake house, that the rest of the world has ended.
**Dark Horse**: My favourite series from DH (actually a bunch of interconnected series) is *Hellboy*. Start with *Hellboy: Seed of Destruction* (either the miniseries or the omnibus which also includes the next few stories). I can also recommend *Beasts of Burden* and, if you want to try out some manga, any of their deluxe manga reprints. *Berserk* is probably the most popular, but for something more standalone you could try Gou Tanabe's *At The Mountains of Madness* adaptation.
**IDW**: My favourite series here is *TMNT*, which has a bunch of different continuities. The best one is almost certainly the modern IDW run, which is collected in reading order in the 'IDW Collections'. It's a long series, but definitely worth it if you're a fan of the Ninja Turtles already. And worth a try if you've never watched/read anything TMNT. IDW also published one of my favourite horror series, *Locke and Key*. It's about a family who moves into the father's childhood home, and start finding magical keys around.
**Image**: There are a million Image series and a lot of them are really popular. *Ice Cream Man* is a horror anthology, *Invincible* is superheroes, *The Walking Dead* is zombie apocalypse, *Paper Girls* is like a time travel coming of age story, *Saga* is a space opera. Heaps of range by some very popular comics creators.
**Boom!**: *Something is Killing the Children* is a horror series about Erika Slaughter, who's job it is essentially to go around to small towns and stop monsters. I've only read the first arc, but it was really great. And I can wholeheartedly recommend anything written by James Tynion IV. *Klaus* is basically "what if Santa Clause has a superhero origin?" and it's so much fun, and has a lot of that Christmas spirit. I re-read it every year. *Coda* has gorgeous colourful art, and is a great story about a fantasy world in which magic is dying.
**Fantagraphics**: Not exclusively published by Fantagraphics, but you can get the start of *Usagi Yojimbo* from these guys. He's a travelling ronin (a samurai without a master) in Japan's Edo period. He's also a rabbit. *Ultrasound* is about government conspiracy, gaslighting, and the unreliability of memory. If you like a good mystery, and a story that makes you reconsider earlier scenes based on new information, you'll love this. *Keeping Two* is about an imperfect couple, and the way your imagination spirals out of control when a loved one isn't home on time, picturing all the things that might have happened to them. This book also helped me accept open endings a lot more, with a discussion between the couple about how it's up to the reader to decide what happens after "The End".
**Oni Press**: One of the first comics I read was *Scott Pilgrim*, and it's still one of my favourites. Very funny, and a fun mix of slice of life and absurd concepts and action. It's all about growing up in your 20s and learning to take responsibility. If you've seen the movie then you'll have a rough idea of the plot, but there are a lot of details exclusive to the books. I frankly haven't read a lot else from Oni Press yet, but can recommend Bryan Lee O'Malley's other work (not all from Oni). *Lost at Sea, Seconds*, and *Snotgirl*.
And that's just some of the bigger ones. There are so many other publishers out there. Humanoids, Drawn & Quarterly, First Second, Silver Sprocket, Cartoon Books, Top Shelf, SelfMadeHero, 2000AD, Titan, Valiant, Dynamite, Archie, and probably dozens more.
I understand I've just thrown a million recommendations at you, but I tried to include a lot of range. And really my point is just to start anywhere, see what you enjoy, and keep reading! If you have a local comic shop, go down there and have a browse. Especially if they have a discounted second-hand section. I also end up getting lots of recommendations from subs like r/graphicnovels and r/omnibuscollectors. There's so many incredible stories out there, and the comics medium can do stuff that no others can. I hope you enjoy!
A good way to start would just be picking a few of your favorite characters and browsing some of their stories to see what stands out. I think this is what the app prompts you to do anyway when you create your account, so you should have some help getting started.
The big events can also help to branch out and try new things, since they often tie into some of the smaller series running concurrently. For instance, when I was first getting into comics last year, I read through the entire Civil War event and found out from that I really like She-Hulk, so now I've got physical copies of a couple of her books. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend doing this, but it's one option if you like to engage with large scale stories like I do.
Side note, since I see a lot of people recommending World War Hulk, I'd also like to recommend Planet Hulk, which is the prelude story that leads into WWH and focuses a lot more on Hulk as a character.
Think about what sort of things you like. Do you want mostly female characters? Comedy? Drama? Soap etc.