I haven’t read any Marvel books since The Ultimates volume 1. I really liked that one. Today, I ordered The Road to Civil War and Civil War from Amazon. Would the comic book experts around here be kind enough to recommend any other TPBs that would be considered essential?
Thanks!
If you’re looking for recent Marvel stuff, grab Ed Brubaker’s runs on both Captain America & Daredevil. Also, his collaboration w/ Matt Fraction on the Immortal Iron Fist. If you’re talking all-time, then grab Frank Miller’s Born Again arc in Daredevil.
Thanks, mono – what about continuity? I’m afraid of spoiling otherwise good reads if I read things too out of sequence. I’ve managed to thus far remain blissfully ignorant about just about all of the Marvel universe plots to date.
I like both Avengers: Disassembled and House of M, but I know some people don’t care for them. In both cases I wouldn’t worry about any of the tie-in trades for those events, but if you like Civil War, I would recommend the Avengers tie-in trade. Those would be your biggest concerns for continuity; they’re where the current state of the Marvel U has basically been shaped.
I enjoy Bendis’s New Avengers a lot as well, especially New Avengers following Civil War. The additional Avengers title he’s started, Mighty Avengers, isn’t as great but might read better in trades. If you’re wildly optimistic, they would also like us to believe that Bendis has been planning Secret Invasion and dropping clues since his start on Avengers. I’m skeptical, but I’d love nothing more than to be proved wrong.
And I second the recommendations for Iron Fist, Brubaker’s Cap, Daredevil, and I’d include Bendis’s Daredevils too though that’s about a dozen trades.
Also, Iron Man has been pretty consistently awesome in my opinion since Ellis’s reboot, particularly now that the long delayed parts are in trades. Iron Man’s sort of tied to everything big that’s been going on in Marvel lately, but the stories have been good in their own right.
The 1st seven issues of Brubaker’s Cap run: http://www.instocktrades.com/product_detail.aspx?id=10d&pid=2479
The 1st trade of Brubaker’s DD run: http://www.instocktrades.com/product_detail.aspx?id=10d&pid=3266
Immortal Iron Fist v1: http://www.instocktrades.com/product_detail.aspx?id=10d&pid=5682
Avengers Dissassembled http://www.instocktrades.com/product_detail.aspx?id=10d&pid=195
(If you look closely towards the end, you’ll see a Skrull in-panel during one of the crowd scenes outside of Avengers mansion. It’s one of Bendis’ earliest planted seeds for Secret Invasion)
New Avengers v1: http://www.instocktrades.com/product_detail.aspx?id=10d&pid=2377
Most of those are going to the same place, and none of them are what you described in your post. edit: well, one of them does.
Whoa, you’re right. Sorry, let me try to fix it.
Edit: OK, should work now.
If you’re gonna pick up Brubaker’s Captain America, might as well get it all at once.
My favourite Marvel comic: Runaways.
That’s a great collection. I figured he might want to test the waters with the 1st trade before dropping $50 bucks on the series, but personally, I think you can’t go wrong with Brubaker’s Cap.
It really doesn’t matter much. If you’re going to read the Avengers stuff read that first, but otherwise it’s not going to make much difference to the individual stories.
I’ve liked Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men run a lot so far, it seems to be happening outside of continuity, which isn’t a bad thing IMO.
And I’ll second the Iron Fist recommendation.
Supreme Power.
Did they ever compile Joe Kelly’s run on Deadpool into a TPB?
Because I just read that (again!) on my singles and it’s still one of the greatest piece of writing for deadpool in Marvel’s history.
It’s just taken so long to produce that continuity had to go on without it. After all, Colossus is alive again and running around in the other X-Books and whining about stuff that happens in GSAX-M that hasn’t been released yet.
Also, try Runaways, available in digest or hardcover formats. Good, relatively self-contained stuff.
Heh, I say its worth it for the Gorgeous Art.
The fourth (and last) Astonishing Trade is due out pretty soon isn’t it?
[crosses fingers] pleasedontsuckpleasedontsuckpleasedontsuck [/crosses fingers]
Dude, the story isn’t even done yet in the singles!
A girl can dream, just like I dream of a last Planetary TPB.
Seriously. I would expect that the last TPB would require the release of #27, which has apparently been done in script form for almost a year.
Well, why should the final issue be any different than the rest of the series… in retrospect I have no regrets in buying up the back issues of Planetary (even the relatively expensive #19) - waiting for the hypothetical last paperback would have kept me hanging at #18 for years.
Amazon’s listing the fourth Astonishing X-Men as July 23rd, for what it’s worth.
Is 27 the “last” issue? Does he tie everything together, because your hypothetical (stopping at #18, which I assume is the last issue collected in a TPB) is exactly where I am. I thought Ellis just lost interest and then slapped something together…not sure where I got that impression…
The plot proper ties up with 26. Issue 27 is supposed to be something of an epilogue. Most, but not all threads are tied together, and all of the really important ones have been taken care of by 26 (with the exception of one that I’m sure will be addressed in 27). I paused at 18 (the end of the third TPB) for at least a year, figuring that I could wait a bit before the end of the series. Given the glacial pace of production (and the fact that I love this series) I finally took the leap and got the singles to almost the end of the run (I think I ended up with 25 and 26 in ‘real time’). Totally worth it. I could probably justify it even more if I was going to skip the collection when it eventually comes out (2009?2010?) but I know I’ll get that as well. Another volume of Absolute Planetary would probably be the best way for them to pick my pocket, but I’m sure I’d even get the paperback if that’s all there was.