Comic Books Recommendations Thread

Nervous Wreck

So a few people have expressed interest in reading comics but don't know where to start. With the Marvel and DC worlds constantly changing and, in some cases, rebooting, it's easy to see why you'd find it hard!

For me, the best thing to do is pick a character you're interested in and get a recommendation! Comic shops like The Big Bang, Sub City and Hidden Treasure are all great for this but it's also pretty much what the internet is made for!

So, if you wanna read comics but don't know where to start, pick a character (or a theme or style etc) that you think you might like and the comic readers of the forum can make suggestions for you!

Or if you do read comics and wanna try out a different book/character, just tell us what you already like and we can make suggestions based on that!

the baby bull elephant

As I mentioned in the other thread I've mainly read Batman, Superman and JL titles.

With regard to Batman it's rare enough that I don't enjoy one of his story lines but ones that spring to mind include The Court of Owls, The Long Halloween, Hush, Death of the Family, Endgame and Year One. I also did enjoy Batman Eternal in many ways but it does drag on a good bit and can vary wildly from issue to issue.

With Superman I've enjoyed Superman For All Seasons, American Alien, Lois & Clark (both of the last two are only a few issues in), Birthright and the current run which began with Lies I think and goes across all Superman titles.

Others that I'd recommend would be Grayson (Nightwing as a secret agent, one of my favorites actually), Rising Stars (by J. Michael Straczynski about the children of a town who all get superpowers and how it affects their lives), Jeff Lemire's run on Green Arrow in the New 52 and finally I just started reading Christopher Priest's run on Black Panther from 1998-2001 7 issues in and it's really good.

sonic85

I'm gonna buy a few comics and give them a read. Are there any good places online to buy them?

Nervous Wreck

sonic85 wrote: »

I'm gonna buy a few comics and give them a read. Are there any good places online to buy them?

Amazon is grand. You could email The Big Bang and ask them to post you your books. I think they just ring you then and take payment over the phone!

sonic85

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

Amazon is grand. You could email The Big Bang and ask them to post you your books. I think they just ring you then and take payment over the phone!

Thanks for that! Ive my eye on a few of deadpools comics and Wolverines Origin. Any other good Wolverine or X Men ones?

Anybody got any suggestions of good Spiderman ones with Venom and Carnage? I've seen Kravens Last Hunt mentioned.

To be honest I love so many characters it's impossible to pick one or two. Iron Man The Punisher and Hulk are more. Batman of course - there's some good suggestions above - I've also seen The Killing Joke mentioned in different places.

Think I'll just start with Deadpool and see what happens!

Nervous Wreck

Wolverine: Enemy of the State is a great read. Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men is loads of fun. Matt Fraction's Iron Man run is great, beginning with The Five Nightmares. The Punisher MAX series is fantastic. Planet Hulk is, for me, the ultimate Hulk story!

sonic85

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

Wolverine: Enemy of the State is a great read. Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men is loads of fun. Matt Fraction's Iron Man run is great, beginning with The Five Nightmares. The Punisher MAX series is fantastic. Planet Hulk is, for me, the ultimate Hulk story!

Great suggestions there thanks! Enough to keep me going for quite a while!

Sonics2k

I'm currently re-reading the Civil War series, one of my absolute favourites, but I've really been out of the loop since the series ended.

Has anyone got any recommendations for other big collections worth a read? Marvel preferred at the moment as I've gone through quite a bit of Batman stuff lately.

Nervous Wreck

Best advice if you're re-reading Civil War is to continue reading the aftermath of that, particularly the Captain America and Amazing Spider-Man books; both have great stuff that happens in the wake of CW so it'd be a good time to read that!

As for other big Marvel events since then, Original Sin is good but some of the tie-ins are hit or miss (particularly Deadpool and All New Invaders). Spider-Verse is recent and one of my favourite Marvel events. It spans about 37 issues and the only ones I didn't really like were the actual Spider-Verse issues (the main story takes place mostly in ASM).

Other good events that I like are:

World War Hulk (pretty important to read Planet Hulk first)
The Infinity Gauntlet
Annihilation
Siege provides closure to Civil War and is quite good!

Nervous Wreck

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

Best advice if you're re-reading Civil War is to continue reading the aftermath of that, particularly the Captain America and Amazing Spider-Man books; both have great stuff that happens in the wake of CW so it'd be a good time to read that!

As for other big Marvel events since then, Original Sin is good but some of the tie-ins are hit or miss (particularly Deadpool and All New Invaders). Spider-Verse is recent and one of my favourite Marvel events. It spans about 37 issues and the only ones I didn't really like were the actual Spider-Verse issues (the main story takes place mostly in ASM).

Other good events that I like are:

World War Hulk (pretty important to read Planet Hulk first)
The Infinity Gauntlet
Annihilation
Siege provides closure to Civil War and is quite good!

Which ASM titles pick up after Civil War? I've read the Captain America stuff and wouldn't mind reading the Spiderman stuff.

Nervous Wreck

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Which ASM titles pick up after Civil War? I've read the Captain America stuff and wouldn't mind reading the Spiderman stuff.

Iirc, it's around issue #540. The first story after Civil War is called Back In Black.

Nervous Wreck

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

Iirc, it's around issue #540. The first story after Civil War is called Back In Black.

Thanks a quick google of back in black confirms your right!

Also as a recommendation...The Boys by Gareth Ennis. It's only available now in graphic novel form now but it's one of the best series I've read.

Mr.Nice Guy

I saw Forbidden Planet's Twitter account mentioning Free Comic Book Day coming up. What is this exactly?

Nervous Wreck

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I saw Forbidden Planet's Twitter account mentioning Free Comic Book Day coming up. What is this exactly?

Worldwide event where comic book stores give away free comics (specific ones that are published for FCBD) From past years, when you go to Forbidden Planet or Sub City, they give you a goodie bag with 5 or 6 random FCBD comics. If you go to The Big Bang in Dundrum, the FCBD comics are on the wall and you can take as many as you want (one of each title). Which is why The Big Bang is the best shop around. A lot of the books are lead ins to upcoming titles (like
last year they had All New All Different Avengers #0, for example). Big Bang's Facebook has a list of all the free comics and anything they don't get rid of on the day goes to, iirc, Crumlin Children's Hospital.

FunLover18

I'd like to recommend Marvel Unlimited, it's basically Netflix for Marvel comics, it's a tenner a month and if you determined to read a lot of comics it's well worth the money. I'm currently reading The Amazing Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, Uncanny X-Men, and The Avengers basically starting with issues 1 from the sixties. They also have certain arcs like Civil War laid out with the main comics as well as the surrounding individual stories. I have it on my phone and I can whip it out and red a comic on whim, and like Netflix it's easy to keep track of what you've been reading.

The only flaw is that it's definitely not 'unlimited' and it doesn't get new comics but for someone like me who is catching up on the past that doesn't really bother me.

Nervous Wreck

FunLover18 wrote: »

The only flaw is that it's definitely not 'unlimited' and it doesn't get new comics but for someone like me who is catching up on the past that doesn't really bother me.

New comics go up on MU about 6 months after they're released iirc. It's defo better for reading retrospective issues though yeah.

FunLover18

Nervous Wreck wrote:

New comics go up on MU about 6 months after they're released iirc. It's defo better for reading retrospective issues though yeah.

Do they? they only seem to have Amazing Spider-Man up until #441 but as I said I'm only using it for older stuff as I'm a total newb to the comics, I haven't explored much newer stuff.

Nervous Wreck

FunLover18 wrote: »

Do they? they only seem to have Amazing Spider-Man up until #441 but as I said I'm only using it for older stuff as I'm a total newb to the comics, I haven't explored much newer stuff.

Oh weird! That was certainly the way it was when I was using it but that's a while back now tbf.

Deano7788

Yeah it's roughly 6 months behind.

The thing to be careful is that once the title starts a new volume and is renumbered it gets grouped separately to the previous volume.

So Amazing Spider-Man vol 1 finished at 441. You then need to go to the series that started in 1999 and a new issue 1.

Sonics2k

Cheers for the advice on the comics NW, I've been trying to sign up on Marvel Unlimited but I keep getting an error on the zip code so I can't. Tried putting in Eircode and the old favourites with no luck. Stupid american sites.

Also Starring LeVar Burton

Sonics2k wrote: »

Cheers for the advice on the comics NW, I've been trying to sign up on Marvel Unlimited but I keep getting an error on the zip code so I can't. Tried putting in Eircode and the old favourites with no luck. Stupid american sites.

Putting in any 5 digits often tends to work - I live in Dublin 16 so always put in 00016, but I've heard 00000 also works.

Sonics2k

Also Starring LeVar Burton wrote: »

Putting in any 5 digits often tends to work - I live in Dublin 16 so always put in 00016, but I've heard 00000 also works.

Tried that as well, no luck sadly. I'll give it a shot tomorrow.

Nervous Wreck

For anyone who likes DC heroes, their reboot series "Rebirth" has now started and is a great jumping-on point for new/lapsed readers!

the baby bull elephant

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

For anyone who likes DC heroes, their reboot series "Rebirth" has now started and is a great jumping-on point for new/lapsed readers!

What have you thought of the issues so far?

I thought the rebirth comican itself was really good with some fantastic moments.

I'm quite excited about the direction superman is going and slightly tentative but interested in the way batman is going. Green Arrow also seems to be going back to the characters roots which is great.

Nervous Wreck

the baby bull elephant wrote: »

What have you thought of the issues so far?

I thought the rebirth comican itself was really good with some fantastic moments.

I'm quite excited about the direction superman is going and slightly tentative but interested in the way batman is going. Green Arrow also seems to be going back to the characters roots which is great.

DC Universe Rebirth was great. Actually caught me off guard, really great setup for the new status quo. I'm not a fan of the revelation right at the end but apart from that, good stuff!

Batman Rebirth was great! I'll defo keep it on my pull list. It's different to Snyder/Capullo's run but I think King will do a great job.

Superman Rebirth was also really good. I didn't really dig N52 Superman tbh but with

the return of Pre-Crisis Superman

, I'm intrigued. And it was set up really well so I'll keep it up for a little while anyway.

Big Bang was sold out of the other Rebirth titles by the time I got there (which is great!) so that's all I've gotten so far. But yeah, so far so good imo!