Marvel Truly is Unlimited

Marvel. It's like a giant delicious looking burger. It's got all the things you love. The Avengers are that flame-broiled angus beef patty. The X-Men are those fresh, crisp garden veggies. The Fantastic 4 are those four strips of mouth-watering bacon. Spice it up with your choice of condiments. Spider-Man, Gwen, Ham, Silk, 2099, Noir, Boy, Woman, Girl, or Miles Morales? Oh and by the way did you want your Avengers Uncanny, Secret, Dark, or Mighty? There's a hundreds of different cheeses in the world; which would you like? Deadpool, Darkpool, Zombie-Headpool, Pandapool, Female Deadpool? Take your pick. Now put the whole thing inbetween two soft buttery buns which the previous event (AvX) and the next event (Secret Wars).

Ok, I think I've made my point. Marvel comes across as a delicious looking burger that is just way to big to take a bite. It's intimidating. I want to dive in, but there's just so much that I don't know. Unfortunately, I'm not a long time fan of any of the characters. I only watched a little bit of the X-Men animated series, and I only played a couple Spider-Man games. I just never truly got into the Marvel characters. I enjoyed what Marvel morsels I tasted, but I never established a tether to this universe like I did with DC.

You see, with DC, I had Batman. I got really into Batman (like really into him). I loved the character and his Dark Knight persona, ever since Batman: The Animated Series. Oh yes, you know the one. It was a great intro to the character for my young mind, and it serves as my anchor for all that I've ever come to love about comics. 

However, that show alone would not have given me the intro to DC I needed to jump right in after the New 52 started. Luckily, there was also The Justice League series. Crossing over from Batman: TAS, The Justice League took my love for Batman and used it to introduce me to an entire pantheon of caped crusaders. Without these two shows acting as my Dc Universe anchor, my love of DC Comics may have taken quite a bit longer to develop. 

My love for Marvel, however, has not been established. I have no anchor and no point through which to breach the shell of such a vast and varied universe. And even though the next big Marvel event, Secret Wars, is supposedly rebooting the universe, it would seem that it's to the extent of DC's Flashpoint event, after which much of the previous continuity was left intact. So I've gone to the internet in search of where to start my journey. It didn't take me long to find a mountain of suggestions, but one site provided more useful than any of the others: Comic Book Herald. 

This site has not only the most in-depth and detailed explanation of where to begin (and more importantly why), it also has fast track trade lists that can launch you into current events. However, what I love most about this "Reading Order" list is that the author takes into account that some of the most essential information is buried in the most atrocious comics, and he lets you know all about it before you go diving in. 

Yet, as good as this site and it's fast track lists are, I know myself too well. I'm going to want not only the essentials, but all of the soup that surrounds them. So, I've decided to start the complete 2000-Current guide with Part 1 (1999-2004), picking, choosing, and generally trimming off the fat of what I want to read based on the authors welcomed input. Now I know this means getting a lot of trades, and money will fly from my pockets if I try to get my hands on all of the material physically. Which leads me to Marvel Unlimited.

Marvel Unlimited, for those who don't know, is a platform on which Marvel uploads a large amount of their old material for users to read with a monthly subscription fee. It looks like a great service, and I honestly don't know why DC doesn't have something similar. Well, my plan is to subscribe to this service and read all of the Marvel stuff I want for just $10 per month. Not a bad price considering the rate at which I will likely read the stuff. Of course, this service does not include current issues; so this will be only a temporary subscription. I hope to be subscribed for no more than 3 months max. Then it's back to the drawing board for the 'ole pull list, but that's another day.
(Honestly I'm mostly drawn to the Marvel Cosmic corner of the universe. So I think my additions will end up being mostly Cosmic related titles. If I were to add Marvel titles right now I would go over my 15 main title limit by adding: Superior Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Nova, The Avengers, New Avengers, and whatever Deadpool is out currently.)

My hope is to be caught up in the Marvel Universe by the end of Secret Wars, which, from what I've found online, will last until the end of 2015. Whether or not this will be a good point to catch up to and jump on, I'll just have to wait and see.

For now, Marvel will have to wait as I'm still catching up on the New 52. I've read all of the Bat titles up until their either conclusion or intermission during the Convergence event, but there are still others that I'm behind on. Namely: Justice League, Justice League Dark, Justice League United, Constantine, Teen Titans, and Trinity of Sin. I'm more than halfway through on almost all of these (the exception is Teen Titans), and the Convergence event should give me time to catch up on all of these before my pull list starts pulling new issues. 

With all of this comic reading to do, I just don't know how I'll have time for anything else...