Is Marvel NOW a good place for new readers to start?
By Rabbitearsblog 15 Comments
For months now, Marvel has announced the coming of Marvel NOW and now that it is finally here, would this be a good place for new readers to jump into their favorite stories?
Basically, Marvel NOW was started after the big event “ Avengers vs. X-Men” and even though it is set up as a chance for new readers to dive into Marvel Comics, would new readers be able to jump into the stories quite as easily?
In my opinion, while it’s great that Marvel NOW is switching creative teams, creating new titles ( Uncanny Avengers and Cable and X-Force), and relaunching some of their titles (Uncanny X-Force and Uncanny X-Men), I think that new readers still might have some trouble trying to jump into these new titles because the events of Marvel NOW were started right after “Avengers vs. X-Men.” Sure, all the new readers have to do is read “Avengers vs. X-Men” to get the full gist of the new direction that Marvel NOW is taking the characters, but what happens if they want to know how “Avengers vs. X-Men” was started in the first place? They would have to read “ Civil War,” “ House of M" to find out how the mutant population was decimated, “ Schism” to find out why the X-Men are split up and many other events that started before “Avengers vs. X-Men” to get the full idea of where “Avengers vs. X-Men” came from. Now, whenever I think of a good place for new readers to start reading stories in comics, I usually think of brand new stories where readers can just jump in without having to worry about past stories to get them to understand the full gist of the story being told. For example, I liked what Grant Morrison did with “ New X-Men” by giving a new story about the X-Men, but still have the story to be set in the same universe as the previous stories and you don’t necessarily have to read any past X-Men events to get the full gist of the story. Sure, new readers wouldn't have much to read back on to understand "Avengers vs. X-Men," but if Marvel NOW is meant to be a new start for the characters, then there should be new stories that are not left over from past stories to really help new readers jump into the stories easily. Of course, it's not quite certain if all the titles in Marvel NOW will follow the events of "Avengers vs. X-Men" ( Fantastic Four and Deadpool are possibilities of not following the events) but we will have to wait and see more from Marvel NOW to see where this new direction takes all the characters.
So what do you think? Do you think that Marvel NOW is a good place for new readers to start or do you think that Marvel should have waited on starting Marvel NOW until the leftover tension from "Avengers vs. X-Men" is over and done with?
15 Comments