Confession of a new reader

I admit that I only got interested in marvel/DC comic books after watching some of the movies. I've considered buying the Guardians of the Galaxy comic books, but upon reading how the plot is handled, I gave up.

And no. I'm not saying the stories are bad. On the contrary, actually.

I'll try summarize what drove me away from superheroes comics: There are no self-contained stories.

For example, from what I read, there's a plot with Thanos that starts in a comic, then jumps to another, then jumps to another, then have its own mini series, then jumps to another and have its final moments in a Guardians of the Galaxy comic. Then, they add some mini series and have Starlord come back in an Anvengers comic and then back to GotG comic. Then, there's another plot that starts in x-men comic, then jumps to GotG, then back to X-men.

It makes it a chore to discover where a story actually begins and where it ends, since the plot is all over the place. Not to mention the pain that it is to organize the comcis. Should they be organized by their numbers (like any decent book/manga) or by plotline?

I think it's a very cool concept to have charcaters from a comic to bump into charcaters from another comic at any moment. However, why don't they make the beggining, middle and end in a single comic series? A practical example: suppose the avengers had just defeated an enemy. then Iron man says that they should go on a vacation. On the next avengers issue they are back to their normal activities. Meanwhile, in a Spider man comic, Aunt May takes Peter to a beach where he bumps into the avengers and fight off against a random vilain (all the interation and plot line would be concentrated inside of Spider man comic).

I, however, know why they do it: to force people to buy comic series from heroes that they don't like solely to get the full story of the charcaters they like.

Imagine if you were to read the Lord of the Rings books and, on page 43 you had to stop, buy another book because the plot suddenly jumped there, read pages 102-150 from that second book, then go back to the LotR book to stop reading again on page 83 to buy ANOTHER book and read the first twenty pages of it because the plot jumped there, You guys understand what I'm trying to say here? This policy is absurd and, sadly, makes me avoid Marvel/DC comics altogether.

Sorry for any grammatical mistake. English ins't my first language.

This is brilliant post. You have nothing to be ashamed about. As expected, more fans would tune into the comics from the movies. I agree with everything you said and I've been reading comics for over 20 years. There is lots wrong with the convoluted Dc/Marvel universes and I pity the many who are confused.

Well said. My fondest memories were reading books with the feeling that any could be your first and you could enjoy a classy done-in-one that was more concerned with engaging you in one sitting than amongst many months of unnecessary crossover and jumps in between titles, especially titles you don't particularly rate or enjoy.

Nicely said... I think the reason why they do it, so everyone feels "connected" and why they jump around titles is because they want all participating heroes to get some part of the story, so an event doesn't get squashed into 23 pages or something....

Don't worry, you speak English better than half the internet!!!

You're not crazy or being heavy handed. Comics used to be much more focused on smaller run one-and-done stories. Granted, an arc might run three to six issues, but usually, you could pick up a book, read it's current story as is and THEN decide if you wanted to stick around for more.

It doesn't help that so many events or major turning points crossover with unforgiving regularity nowadays. For instance, right now, if you just wanna read the current Mighty Avengers title, you're going to be a bit confused why iconic good guys like Iron Man or Thor are a little too eager to stomp the life out of their super-powered contemporaries. Unless you wanna wiki or buy Axis. Which, if you want to appreciate fully, kind of helps to have read Uncanny Avengers to some extent. Which was spawned from the fallout of Avengers vs X-men which-

Basically, you have a good point. Now, longtime nerds/fanboys such as myself digest it with less a headache, but I would have a hard time arguing that the current Marvel books are new reader friendly. Maybe Marvel just knows their demo, but I think it's a potential waste of a new reader. Probably why they're always changing up the status quo to provide that ever elusive jumping on-point. How well that works? Well, I think you're thread makes a pretty compelling argument for one side of the debate.

Damn.. That was a really good write up!

I don't really mind long story arcs and start reading in the middle of it. Sure, I'll be confused about what's going on at first, but if I like it enough, I'll stick around (kinda like what happened when I first started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The very first episode that I saw was one in the middle of the 5th season, I liked so I tuned in everyday until they re-run the first season. But it did help that, at the very beggining of each episode they made a "Previsouly on Buffy" segment to make the plot easier to follow). What "irks" me in Marvel stories is how they jump from a comic series to another making the plot hard to follow unless I buy everything Marvel sells.

@angelusalvus: Right. And crossovers and events used to be so rare in comparison that when something like, say, Onslaught came along, you kind of wanted to buy at least some of the other titles. But a story like Axis hasn't been fulfilling to read because so much of the story and character arcs are appearing in other titles.

@angelusalvus: Right. And crossovers and events used to be so rare in comparison that when something like, say, Onslaught came along, you kind of wanted to buy at least some of the other titles. But a story like Axis hasn't been fulfilling to read because so much of the story and character arcs are appearing in other titles.