If you are a fan of movies or television in 2015, then the cultural dominance of the superhero will not come as a surprise to you—water is wet, skies are azure, and two “Avengers” movies have made a billion dollars each.
With the hundreds of millions of dollars being pumped into comic book-inspired movies, television, and toy commercials (sometimes they are one and the same), it's easy to feel either exasperated or fascinated by it all. In the midst of all this noise, one name stands taller than the rest in the current pop culture climate: Marvel.
Perhaps you’ve never read a Marvel comic, but you’d like to start. Lucky for you, Marvel has made it very easy to get into its comics—if you have a smartphone, tablet, or access to a web browser, you can subscribe to Marvel Unlimited: A Netflix-style streaming service with the vast majority of Marvel comics 75-plus year library ready for you to read. That’s wonderful, but daunting—75 years of continuous storytelling? Where do you start?
"Captain America" by Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting
Why it’s great: Did you like “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”? Here’s where that story was first told. Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting reinvent Captain America as an espionage thriller, a propulsive and smart story that’s engrossing and hard to put down. While it does get a bit mired in a few crossovers, one of those crossovers is “Civil War”— which is the source material for the next Captain America movie.
How to read it: The issue numbers make big leaps and that can make things a bit confusing, but in Marvel Unlimited the entire Brubaker/Epting run is collected under “Captain America” (2004-2011). Start reading it here.
What to read next: Check out two other great recent runs featuring Avengers from the Marvel movies: Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca’s “Invincible Iron Man” and Greg Pak’s epic “Planet Hulk” arc in “Incredible Hulk” with various artists, listed under “Incredible Hulk” (1999-2011) #92-112.
"Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E." by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen
Why it’s great: In the early 2000s, superhero comics had taken on a certain hard-edged cynicism, a grim “edginess” that wasn’t always entirely effective. Created by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen, “Nextwave” takes everything about that zeitgeist (which you can still see in comics and comic-book movies today) and strips away all pretense.
It’s about (take a deep breath) a group of heroes who rebel against the government agency they used to work for when they find out said agency is controlled by a corporation that’s actually a front for a terrorist organization looking to test ridiculous weapons like broccoli-powered robots and man-eating teddy bears on unsuspecting civilians around the world.
But none of that really matters—it’s all just an excuse for outlandish fight scenes and laugh-out-loud comedy. Ellis and Immonen lampoon their contemporaries by exaggerating the ridiculousness of the era—and by being really, really good at making comics.
How to read it: It’s all there under “Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E.” #1-12.
What to read next: For the same blend of sharp comedy and biting social critique (with a touch of Jorge Luis Borges and H.P. Lovecraft), consider Ales Kot and Michael Walsh’s “Secret Avengers” (2014). For pure, laugh-out-loud funny, you can’t get much better than Nick Spencer and Steve Lieber’s “The Superior Foes of Spider-Man.”
"Hawkeye" by Matt Fraction, David Aja, Matt Hollingsworth, et al
Why it’s great: One of the most critically-acclaimed comics of the past three years, “Hawkeye” was a game-changer. Created by the critically-acclaimed team of Matt Fraction and David Aja (with some help from fantastic artists like Annie Wu, Francesco Francavilla, and always-great colorist Matt Hollingsworth), “Hawkeye” follows the Avenger who’s just a normal guy, and tells the stories of what he does when he’s not out avenging.
What Fraction and Aja ended up creating felt (and still feels) like nothing else in superhero comics, with a design-minded indie comics feel that led to phenomenal experiments like an issue that featured heavy use of sign language, or the one told entirely from the perspective of a dog who solves a murder. If you haven’t read it yet, now’s the time.
How to read it: Start with 2012’s “Hawkeye” #1 and read until the end. At the time this post is being written, the “end” is issue #20—the actual final two issues have suffered interminable delays. While #21 is available for purchase, it’s not currently on Marvel Unlimited. #22 is currently scheduled for July 2015. Whether or not it comes out then remains to be seen. Don’t be afraid to dive in, though—#20 is a pretty good place to pause the narrative before the big two-part finale. Start reading "Hawkeye" here.
What to read next: Fraction and Aja first collaborated on another excellent book, “The Immortal Iron Fist” (which was co-written by Ed Brubaker and showcased a number of other artists). The first 16 issues are fantastic, and a good preview of what you could expect from Netflix’s forthcoming “Iron Fist” series.
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