Ack! Marvel Unlimited!

[firecat]

Gods help me, I signed up for a trial of Marvel Unlimited, which for ~$70/yr seems to give you access to many issues of Marvel comics, as long as you don’t mind reading them on a screen.

If you’re a Marvel Comics fan, is there anything you particularly recommend?

Comments

[lilacsigil]

What kind of comics do you like? Any particular characters you want to read about?

[firecat]

My fave Marvel character is MCU Loki and I bought the subscription to check out comics Lokis. I like most of the other MCU/Loki TV characters that Loki interacts with.

other characters/comics I’ve liked (all DC): Sandman, Constantine, some Batman

[lilacsigil]

If you like Loki and Sandman, you need to read Journey Into Mystery by Kieron Gillan. The collection is:

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY (2011) #622-645, EXILED #1, NEW MUTANTS (2009) #42-43 and MIGHTY THOR (2011) #18-21.

Amazing writing, caused a Loki renaissance in the comics!

[firecat]

Thank you!!!

[sineala]

I'm not very up on Loki, but if you ever want recs for Captain America, Iron Man, or Avengers, I have that pretty well covered. (I've read some Guardians of the Galaxy, some Captain Marvel, and some Doctor Strange, but can't really do extremely authoritative recs there.)

If you just want some recent-ish comics that are generally Good and do not presume you know a whole lot about the intricate details of comics plotlines, you cannot go wrong with:

- G. Willow Wilson's Ms. Marvel run. Introduces Kamala Khan and is, I think, a very charming modern take on the familiar "teenager gets superpowers" plot. The art is great and it's just really, really solid.

- The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. Squirrel Girl was originally conceived of as a joke character who could talk to squirrels was powerful enough to defeat Galactus and so on but she always did it off-panel so we never actually saw it. Ryan North took this character and played the whole premise completely seriously (with a whole lot of humor) and now Squirrel Girl basically solves all her problems with the power of friendship (yes, including defeating Galactus) and it's just... really heartwarming and clever and smart and funny. One of my absolute favorite series ever.

- Matt Fraction's Hawkeye run. I feel really conflicted about recommending this because I absolutely loathe his Iron Man run but I think everything that didn't work in his IM run works stunningly well here. The version of Hawkeye he writes is very little like any version of Hawkeye that preceded this, but it's a very, very good read about Clint Barton, general human disaster, and what he gets up to when he's not being an Avenger. David Aja's art is superb, and this is a storyline where mostly the stakes are pretty low and yet he makes you care so much about the little things.

For a general look at the big events of the earlier years of comics, I highly recommend Marvels. (There are a lot of things named Marvels, so I mean this 1994 miniseries by Busiek and Ross.) It's basically a modern retelling of the big events of the first few years of the comics from the 60s from the point of view of a newspaper photographer who is just watching all this unfold. The art is fully painted and it is absolutely gorgeous and it will give you an idea of some of the really big early events in Marvel history.

I'd also recommend Alias if you liked Jessica Jones, because I think it's probably Brian Michael Bendis' best work and it doesn't require all that much comics knowledge, but I know Alias isn't on Unlimited because it is for adults. It's still worth tracking down, though.

[brainwane]

Seconding Unbeatable Squirrel Girl!

[brainwane]

I haven't read all of Wilson's run of Ms. Marvel but I have very much enjoyed the bits of it I have read.

[oracne]

Seconding these recs!

Also Ta Nahesi-Coates' run of Black Panther, and expecially Black Panther and the Crew: We Are the Streets.

Kate Bishop by Kelly Thompson. Young Avengers (various series).

These were adorable: The Unstoppable Wasp: Agents of G.I.R.L. by Jeremy Whitley and Elsa Charretier, and Kate Leth's run of Hellcat.

[violsva]

Further to the Young Avengers rec: the 2013 series by Kieron Gillen includes Kid Loki (pretty sure you should read it after the Journey Into Mystery series recced above) and I found it readable without much knowledge of the earlier YA series.

Not as recent, but I will also put in a rec for all of Runaways by Brain K Vaughan.

[firecat]

Thank you!

[firecat]

Great, thanks!

[firecat]

Oh yeah, Black Panther, of course!

[firecat]

Really helpful, thank you!

I do like MCU Captain America. I hate MCU Iron Man but if he's less awful in the comics I'd be into recs for Avengers in general as well.

[sineala]

I think whether you would like comics Iron Man depends on what exactly you don't like about MCU Iron Man. Comics Iron Man was basically created in the mold of a tragic romantic hero; his origin story is that he takes shrapnel to the chest, has to wear the Iron Man suit chestplate under his clothes and charge it up regularly to stay alive. Everyone envies him and thinks he has everything in the world, but he is sad and lonely and convinced he is going to die soon so no one should love him because they'll just be sad. He's depressed and occasionally suicidal. He's an alcoholic. He's a genius but not really an arrogant one, IMO; there's a lot of focus on his philanthropy and his attempts to do good in the world, because he was created in the 1960s to be basically an ad for capitalism so he's very much the fantasy of the One Good Billionaire. He's occasionally quippy but not like MCU Tony is. So if any of that sounds like a character you would like, I can give you some recs.

(I have some meta about him here and some meta about him and Cap more generally here and a sort of flowchart of reading suggestions for Avengers stuff focusing on Cap and Iron Man.)

My go-to suggestion for anyone to see if they're going to like Avengers and specifically Cap comics is the miniseries Captain America: Man Out of Time, which is a modern-day retelling of Captain America's origin story and how he ended up in the future and was found by the Avengers. And then the part here that's new is "what if he got a chance to go back to the 40s?" and it's just... great. Waid is my favorite Cap writer.

The place a lot of people start with for Avengers is New Avengers volume 1 (2005, I think? somewhere around there), which is easy to get into because the team is mostly people you've already heard of, living in the Tower; it's also the lead-up to Civil War if you decide you ever want to read that. My favorite Avengers run is the one before that, Busiek & Perez' 1998 Avengers vol 3 (which is also the era of my favorite Cap and IM runs -- Busiek's IM vol 3 and Waid's Cap vol 3) and it's an awful lot of fun but it does assume you know who all these people are.

[firecat]

This is really helpful. MCU Iron Man comes across to me as arrogant and stupid because he refuses to listen to his team (or even the AIs he created himself) when they tell him something is a bad idea. The Iron Man you describe sounds more interesting. Thanks for the recommendations!

[sineala]

Yeah, I won't claim that 616 Tony hasn't Done Some Bad Things because he sure has, but for the most part, he really is a team player, as are all the Avengers, or they don't really last long as Avengers.

One of the big differences between the structure of the Avengers in the MCU versus the comics is that in the MCU Cap just basically leads the Avengers and everyone knows that, but in the comics the Avengers are more democratic and have a charter and bylaws and so on and team chair is an elected position; in the beginning they were all taking turns and then it started to be a little more permanent. The three Avengers who have held the position for longest are Cap, yeah, but also then Wasp and Black Widow, the last two of whom were successively team chairs for about fifteen years, and then lately it's been T'Challa. So they basically all have experience listening to each other and following each other's orders.

Unfortunately I am one of the people who believes we haven't had a good Iron Man run since about 2009 so I find it hard to recommend more modern comics. As I've said, I really like Busiek's run from 1998 (as well as the rest of that volume) and I think it's readable without knowing much in the way of backstory and has some of my favorite arcs but I think also the art has started to age a little for modern sensibilities -- but to me that is The Real Tony Stark.

Probably the best modern starting point I would pick for Iron Man is the beginning of Iron Man vol 4 which is from 2005 or 2006 or thereabouts; it begins with Warren Ellis's miniseries Extremis which includes an origin story recap and is a pretty solid intro to the character. It's short, only six issues, and the art is much more modern in style.

[brainwane]

My household enjoyed the She-Hulk series when Dan Slott was writing it (less when Peter David was) for the law plotlines.

[firecat]

Thank you!

[alexcat]

Well, you know I am Stony shipper and my favorite Marvel comics are 1872 - which is part of Battle world. Steve is a sheriff and Tony the drunken blacksmith in a town called Timely in 1872 Arizona, I think. There are four of them and the next ones are Red Wolf and they follow the story, sort of. There are six of them. Many of the Avengers good guys and bad guys are there though I do not think Loki and Thor appear - they'd be a great addition in fanworks to this corner of Marvel though.

I also enjoyed the first 2-3 years of the Captain Americas - we see Cap punch Hitler at least once, if not more. They were quite anti-German and very propagandistic but still they're worth a read just for the atmosphere of WWII.

Another set I liked was Black Widow circa 2016 - it was a Red Room story and quite good.

I really love reading comics online - I have trouble reading the printed versions and I can see them very well in full screen online plus I like the way you can see panel to panel in order.

You can tell I enjoy Marvel Unlimited!

[firecat]

Really helpful, thanks! I enjoyed writing a Weird West Lucifer AU so I suspect I'll enjoy 1872 a lot, and the others look very intriguing too

[novembermond]

After reading the jid Loki stuff already reced above I did like YA Loki in Agent of Asgard. I think the App has Collections anyway where you choose the character you want to read about and it gives you the relevant comics to read in order.

I also enjoyed God of Thunder but there is no Loki in it - spoilers for the upcoming Thor movie, probably. I also liked Jane's runs.

I also liked Kamala Khan's Miss Marvel comics - the very first one has Loki in it.

And if you want something completely different and whacky you can check out Gwenpool.