What are the best Marvel comics?

jcoffman99

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So I picked up a subscription to the Marvel Unlimited archive and have really been enjoying reading the Captain America books from the 1940s. It's kind of neat to think as I read them in my bed on my iPad, that my grandfather could have been reading them when they were new and he was stationed overseas.

The amount of content available is overwhelming. As someone new to comics I'm curious as to which series/story lines everyone would recommend. I know the Civil War was the big thing a few years ago, but anything else out there I should read right away?

John
 
Chris Claremont's run on Uncanny X-men. The two Wolverine limited series. You could read some of the crossover events, too, including the Evolutionary Wars, Atlantis Attacks, and whatever else they did after that.

Frank Miller's run on Daredevil, too, back in the 80s.
 
Original run of The Amazing Spider-Man, atleast till #150. That also covers the Gwen Stacy saga. Stan Lee's run was the first 100 issues and then few issues after that.
 
It may be because it was "my" era, but I actually think a lot of the 80s stuff is pretty solid. It was before Marvel REALLY exploded, started doing variant foil covers, had 15 different X-titles, etc.

Also, 1986 was Marvel's 25th Anniversary, and they had a lot of big stuff happen that year.
 
The thing that keeps cracking me up about Captain America is that he and Bucky can pretty much get off the army base/out of duty any time they want. No wonder there are so many bad guys with base security like this. :)
 
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"Dark Phoenix" is among the best of the best. Also, this is a good time to read "Days of Future Past" before the movie comes out.

I also recommend "God Loves, Man Kills".

In more recent story arcs, the Schism storyline was really great. I also recommend Whedon's run on Astonishing X-men. It is (ha) astonishing how beautifully it's written! ;) Kitty is my new favorite thanks to that run.
 
One note: Days of Future Past is really just, like, 2 issues worth, which resurfaces again when Rachel Summers gets zapped through to Earth-616. There was a TPB published, but at least 4 of the roughly 7-8 issues contained therein are unrelated.
 
Dark avengers is ok, green goblin running the avengers

Can't go wrong with the Gwen Stacy story or dark Phoenix ones as others have stated.
 
Civil War's only worth reading if you want to see Iron Man be the bad guy. Ed Brubacher's Cap run gets a lot of praise. Messiah Complex was good, though you may want to read some House of M to set that up first. I pretty much threw the towel in on giving Marvel my comics money after One More Day so I can't speak to too much of the newer stuff.

Ultimate Spider-man was pretty solid. I haven't read much of the Miles Morales issues, but that seemed promising. Ultimate X-Men was okay for about 50 issues or so. Ultimates not written by Jeff Loeb is supposed to be good.
 
Same here. I stopped buying Marvel and pretty much stopped buying new monthly single issue comics after reading Amazing Spider-Man's One More Day. I had few issues of the Brand New Day storyline on pre-order which got shipped, but I didn't read anything beyond the first issue. Though I know many fans praised Dan Slott's writing as he continued with the Amazing Spider-Man series.

I will continue to buy their classic stories on TPBs. And I hope to read more new comic titles which are not from Marvel and DC, as I am tired of their vicious cycle of rebooting their characters and titles along with renumbering them. Though I enjoyed Civil War, their annual crossover stories started to get tedious to keep up with, as one would be losing out on the story if they didn't buy the dozen number of titles. Self contained stories are much more appealing now.
 
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Dark Phoenix Saga from X-Men. Probably one of the best story arcs ever and done by legends Claremont and Byrne. Batman's Hush and Long Halloween are awesome as well. Kingdom Come written by Mark Waid and amazing art by Alex Ross and Crisis on Infinite Earths by Wolfman and Perez are probably the best mini-series ever done.

Edit: Noticed you said just Marvel. Pretty much would just suggest the Dark Phoenix Saga and Frank Miller's run on Daredevil and the Wolverine mini-series. And if you can handle it, the Onslaught saga which bridges multiple titles.
 
There's an ongoing Hawkeye series that's getting a ton of praise right now. I haven't gotten around to reading it, but I'm planning to pick up the trade paperbacks (Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon, Vol. 1 and Hawkeye: Little Hits, Vol. 2) around Christmas time to binge on.
 
Almost slipped my mind! I don't know how I could forget the Age of Apocalypse era. That's another definite read in my opinion.
 
Chris Claremont's run on Uncanny X-men. The two Wolverine limited series. You could read some of the crossover events, too, including the Evolutionary Wars, Atlantis Attacks, and whatever else they did after that.

Frank Miller's run on Daredevil, too, back in the 80s.

I agree with the uncanny x-man. Pretty much all uncanny x-men up until about 1991 then marvel went a bit weird and launched tons of spinoffs. Check out the Secret Wars comics. I managed to get a disk with all the uncanny books from the first issue to 2002 or so but they're all out of print with ironman and captain america going for a fortune. i've been getting the trade paperbacks though.
 
Warning Trolls Ahead:

A much more recent series you should totally pick up is Avengers Arena. It's one of the best marvel series in a long time... [/endtroll]

In all seriousness Runaways is my favorite marvel series to date. Some of the more recent series like Superior Spiderman, Nova, Guardians of the Galaxy, are pretty good and hawkeye is pretty friggan awesome. X-men the only one I really got into was Messiah Complex... house of M story arch was terrible and civil war was retconned to hell.
 
Warning Trolls Ahead:

A much more recent series you should totally pick up is Avengers Arena. It's one of the best marvel series in a long time... [/endtroll]

In all seriousness Runaways is my favorite marvel series to date. Some of the more recent series like Superior Spiderman, Nova, Guardians of the Galaxy, are pretty good and hawkeye is pretty friggan awesome. X-men the only one I really got into was Messiah Complex... house of M story arch was terrible and civil war was retconned to hell.

Civil War made me glad i quit collecting in the mid 90s before marvel jumped an entire planet of sharks. i'm not sure who is to blame at the loss of quality the writers or the suits. I never had a high opinion of joe quesada and even less when he became editor in chief as it seems things got worse when he took that position.
 
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