New reader! Help!
 

So I've been into Marvel at a superficial level since about 2006. I like the characters, costumes, concepts, but I neverhad the time or money to get into it too much further. Well I decided to do a 1-year Marvel Digital subscription, and I'm kind of at a loss as to what I need to read.

For instance, Civil War. It crosses over the different titles so much I'm not sure what order or which titles to read. So if someone can start pointing me in the right direction, I wanna get reading. I've already tackled a lot of Deadpool (love that guy!) but I wanna get into some more of the meaty, serious, important continuity stuff.

Thanks :)

For me, it goes

House of M
Civil War
World War Hulk
Secret Invasion
Dark Reign
Captain America: Reborn
Siege
Shadowland
Chaos War
Fear Itself

As for Cosmic

The Infinity Gauntlet [1990s series, must read!!]
Annihilation
Annihilation: Conquest
War of Kings
Realm of Kings
The Thanos Imperative

That, for me, are the ones I enjoyed the most.

so you just want to read the event books and their tie ins? Or you want to go into the b level books?

@ Tiberius: Ok, I'll try that order then. I suppose there ought to be lists online with the order of issues in each event?

@ bmorr: Right now I want the big picture event stuff. Once I'm done with that, I'll be into B-level. I'd like people at the comic shop to stop looking at me funny cuz I'm only really familiar with a basic overview, and all the movies. :P

Thanos the end is a great trade to read too.

Personally, I would suggest avoiding the events, and hitting either the older stuff, or different titles. Runaways, Young Avengers, (old) Exiles, Ultimate Spiderman, Great Lakes Avengers, Next Wave, Alpha Flight are all really great books that have little to nothing to do with the big events.

But then, between DC and Marvel focusing so strongly on multi title crossover events to the point they both have a couple a year (Where there used to be only a really big one every couple years, between the two), and have pretty much run both universes into the ground... I'm kinda really burned out on them.

I don't think I have access to trades through Marvel digital, just issues.

ok then i have a great idea. marvel put out this initiative called the .1 issues.
its kinda old but it explains it better than i can

Marvel: Point One Begins In February 2011 | Marvel Heroes | Comic News | News | Marvel.com

House of M

Just finished House Of M. On to the next ones.

Did you read Disassembled before House of M?

Nope, but I think I got the gist of it.

All of these have been added to my must read list :)

I'm about to start reading Decimation now.

So am I.. So are most people.. What I don't get is that we were told Siege was the last one for a while. And it went right into Fear Itself..

Yeah. I just want to read and enjoy a nice, well written story that stands on it's own. The fate of the world and the universe are not at stake, doesn't spread out across dozens of titles, and hundreds of characters are not involved.
And when they don't come at us one after the other after the other after the other, then when they do happen, it really makes them that much more special.
Honestly? Hot off the heels of Infinite Crisis, 52, and the whole "One Year Later," jump, and with Blackest Night looming and forshadowing everything, I was barily aware Final Crisis happened at all. And have yet to even read it.
I loved Blackest Night, but it would have been far more satisfying without a half dozen continuity changing events happening in the past couple years.

It makes me appreciate the small, "insignificant" titles so much more. Secret Six, Batgirl, Runaways, I get so much more enjoyment out of, lately. They just bring so much more satisfaction to me.
Ironman used to could have adventures in his own book, that you didn't need to follow just to understand what was happening in Uncanny X-Men.

Or maybe I'm just jaded.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. The events are kind of starting to burn me out as well. Sometimes, I just want a comic focused entirely on the avengers having an "off day" and just...idk...walking through the park, or relaxing, or anything that regular people do to relax..just so I could get a "breather" before the next event starts... :)

Its not published by or relating to Marvel in any way, but you really should read this Graphic Novel whenever you get the chance: http://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.net...11098661_1.jpg

Amazon.com: Common Grounds Volume 1 (2nd Printing) (v. 1) (9781582408415): Troy Hickman, Dan Jurgens, Chris Bachalo, Carlos Pacheco, Sam Keith, Angel Medina, George Perez, Ethan Van Sciver: Books

It is SO good. :) Truly one of the best Graphic Novels I've ever read, I recommend this to anyone.

I remember an issue of Uncanny X-Men, mid ninties. Scott Lobdell wrote an entire issue that was nothing more than the X-Men enjoying a nice, thanksgiving dinner.
It's still one of my alltime favorite issues, to date.

That's not exactly what I'd intended in my post, but yes. These sorts of moments are nice too. They're entirely character building, and as you said, a nice breather.
Simularly, I just read the most recent Batgirl TPB. After a somewhat larger story of Oracle vs Calculator, they had a single issue stand alone story that was Batgirl and Supergirl, having to locate and stake 23 dracula that had been brought to life from a film reel. Fun!

Tiberius' list is spot on. Reading all of these in this specific order will get you right up to date on everything big that's happened with Marvel for the past decade or so. If you browse Marvel's digital database by title or event you can get a lot of the tie-ins/prequels/sequels to these events too.

I found a topic on the Marvel forum that gives an issue by issue reading list to get the entire thing, and that's what I've been spending my evenings on the last couple nights.

Call me a n00b, but I really like these events, with all the characters going off and having their own part of the bigger picture... that's kinda what happens in real life.

Check your local library some have trades you can borrow for free, and they have core titles so you can still look @ the big events online and read the smaller scale stuff for free it really is a win win situation ;)

I read Captain America, Hulk, Thor, and the Avengers.

Out of those books, right now I am enjoying Hulk the most.

Also, the first 2 issues of Daredevil were pretty good.

If you like the epicness of the events you really need to go ahead and read Dark Reign followed by Siege like right now. Don't bother with Shadowland it sucks.

Oh man this thread is awesome. Keep the list going. I need more to read :)