After years of watch superheros cartoons I finally decided to start reading comics. I did it half year ago, after almost learning all the origin stories of superheros or at least basic superheros, and other important things: Wolverine's claws are made of Adamantium, there's like one hundred kinds of kryptonite, blah blah blah

I stared with some Marvel mini-series for kids (yeah silly but it's my way) but in the moment to jump to the current events I get overwhelmed and afraid so after some movie influences (TDK) I stared reading DC.

In a month (was Summer vacation) I was reading Red Robin and actualizing myself a little, reading old and resent comics and like I'm pretty geek I loved the easily that was learning all the events and time line of DC universe... but I totally forget marvel.

Now I want read Marvel but stills being ovewhelming, Can somebody help me with the time line? or at least tell me what the heck is that "Fear itself" stuff?

Pretty Please

Sorry, I couldn't resist from doing that ^^

@RedOwl_1: To be blunt if you are just starting to read comics Fear Itself (or any event) is probably the last thing you want to read right now since its not going to make sense. Marvel had their big shots initiative that started a couple months ago with Punisher, Daredevil, and Moon Knight comics all starting at issue #1 and were written to make it new reader friendly so you might want to check out those current series since I know the Punisher one isn't tied to the fear itself event making it much easier to read and not have to wonder about a whole bunch of other characters. Also for Marvel they have their digital comics membership which I got after having not read comics in a few years which helped me catch up on a lot of previous events. I payed around $50.00 for it (a year's subscription) and has literally hundreds of comics on it from previous series that allow you to catch up with who is who in the marvel universe. So I'd recommend getting a Marvel's digital comic subscription over getting a whole bunch of fear itself titles which can be hard for anyone to follow since so many characters are involved.

I'm getting curious about Marvel Digital. I'm running out of room to store comics. What is the selection like? Do they have old comics as well as new ones?

@trailofdead said:

I'm getting curious about Marvel Digital. I'm running out of room to store comics. What is the selection like? Do they have old comics as well as new ones?

The comics posted on it are a year old or older. They have a ton of comics on them although some of the selection for certain characters can be pretty bad. For example they have Matt Fraction's Punisher War Journal series on it even though Fraction is one of the worst Punisher writers ever and the series was not one fans are fond of at all yet they don't have Garth Ennis Welcome Back Frank story on their, his marvel knights run, or Punisher's MAX stories which are considered the best. So for some characters its not very good but in general you can sit their and read hundreds of comics through Marvel's digital service. They do also carry lots of older comics on the service as well.

@trailofdead said:

I'm getting curious about Marvel Digital. I'm running out of room to store comics. What is the selection like? Do they have old comics as well as new ones?

If you use Comixology they have some same day titles now. It's not every title, but some of the main ones like Uncanny X-Men etc. They are supposedly going to be completely same day digital by March 2012, and they will be using Comixology like DC is from my understanding.

I agree that I'd just ignore Fear Itself. I think almost all of us who read it wish we had ignored it ourselves!

I wouldn't worry too much about continuity, I would just focus in in characters or writers or artists that you like. The backgrounds for every comic are so overwhelmingly huge at this point that no one knows everything (even the writers). So what I would honestly do is just pick some comics that seem interesting to you and then if they're confusing, just read their characters' entries here on the Vine or elsewhere. You just slowly pick up on the details over time.

I've gone in and out of reading comics over the years, stopping for years at a time sometimes due to money and time constraints, which means that every time I come back, I have to figure out what I missed. When I came back to reading comics most recently, I trolled around on CV and wikipedia just reading entries for months, learning all kinds of stuff that had been going on. It's a ton of stuff, but it's kind of fun to research.

Some of the Marvel comics that seem to be getting the most positive acclimations from readers, and which I personally like the most, are Daredevil, Journey into Mystery (with Loki), and Children's Crusade, which is a limited series that is just ending up. Children's Crusade may be kind of complicated, but ties up a lot of loose ends from previous years. A lot of other people are talking about X-Force, although I don't read that myself.

Oh and I totally think that going with the kids' comics was a good idea. I get them for my kids, and I like the way they sum up a lot of the characters and their relationships. And because they don't have to worry about all the massive event crossover continuity stuff, they're free to just have fun in a way that adult comics sometimes aren't.