Catching up with the Marvel Universe

As listeners to the Geekistry podcast know, I am a die-hard Marvel comics universe fan – my favorites being Captain America, The Avengers and X-Men titles.  As much as I love keeping up with this colorful, super powered soap opera I often find myself going long stretches of time between story arcs.  Lack of money, lack of time, and combinations of the two derail my efforts – and when I get the opportunity to get back to the books, I find that I’m 3 epic crossovers and 7 storylines behind the curve and have no idea what’s going on.  Where’s Hulk?  Luke Cage is back?  Spiderman is NOT married to Mary Jane?  WTF?

Recently, I found myself in a particularly bad quandry – the last major story arc I had followed in Marvel was the “Onslaught” and “Operation: Zero Tolerance” stories from waaaaay back in 1996-1997 (I did get majorly turned on to the Ultimates books – especially Ultimate Spiderman and Millar’s The Ultimates in the intervening years).  I had picked up the trade paperback for “Marvel Civil War“, and “House of M” – and while I enjoyed them both – I was more than a little lost.  To boot, I learned that writer Brian Michael Bendis was in the middle of some serious world revising, with some massive implications for all Marvel characters – an ongoing arc of nearly 6 years and multiple events – a truly epic event!  I had to know what was up – so I started digging.

To my despair I quickly learned that trying to jump into an ongoing story like that is confusing – like trying to jump into Battlestar Galactica during season 4 and make any sense of what had gone before – only I think the Marvel storyline was even more complicated.  The internet offered little help.  No one source laid it all out.  What should I read?  In what order?  Where does it start?  What do I need to know? Is it any good?

Well, faithful readers and visitors from cyberspace – let me give you the gift of knowledge.  Hard fought knowledge of geek canon and mythical men in tights that took literally weeks to acquire and understand.

I give you:  How to catch up on the Marvel Universe – the essential titles – in order.  These are the books (every one of them a trade paperback or hardbound omnibus edition) that cover the major story arc, helmed by Bendis starting in 2004 with “Avengers: Disassembled”, and concluding with “Siege”.  I know, those names mean nothing to you – any more than they did to me.  So let me clue you in without any major spoilers, then I’ll give you the list so you can purchase the books yourself.

Where does it start?

The single story, “Avengers: Disassembled” is the most logical starting point.  If you know nothing about the current Marvel U, it’s the best place to start because the big guys like Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Man are all present – and any sideline characters aren’t relevant enough to confuse you.  This is an event that sees a major character go tragically wrong and change the Avengers forever.  What you need to know going in:  The Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff) can apparently control reality.  That’s all you need to know.

Where does it go?

After the Avengers are forever changed, dark things begin to occur.  The Scarlet Witch completely falls apart in “House of M“, leaving the Marvel mutant world sidelined for years.  The chaos of both “House of M” and “Avengers: Disassembled”

leads to the US government mandating that all super-powered heroes be registered  – an event that creates sharp divisions among the heroes themselves, and leads to a “Civil War” across the Marvel U.  Some major players in the universe will not make it out of this event as the same individual that entered it, and some will not make it out alive at all.  In the wake of the civil war, dark, authoritarian powers rise up to claim leadership over the world, with the real heroes forced underground to survive, and eventually rebel.  Has this all been orchestrated?  The answers to that make up the turning point storyline called “Secret Invasion“, and to say anything about it would be a crime – but trust me, things are not as they seem, and if you pay very close attention as you read the early storylines, you’ll pick up plenty of clues.  Just when you thing things couldn’t get any crazier, the story enters the third act with the monumental return of two Marvel characters, missing from years of the story arc, and a “Siege” to retake the heavens themselves from the evil that has held sway over the world since “Avengers: Disassembled“. In the end it leads to a rebirth of the golden age – a return to classic good guys vs. bad guys that has been muddied over decades of continuity.

Is it any good?

Yeah, it is.  There are some stand out stories here.  The entire Captain America run by Ed Brubaker is fantastic.  The stand alone story “Wolverine: Enemy of the State” is gripping and action packed – you’ll realize why Wolverine is one of the most powerful and feared characters in the Marvel U.  The “Civil War” series is pivotal, but also dramatic and well written, with a shocking twist at the end if you don’t know it’s coming.  “Planet Hulk” is simply one of the best sci-fi stories I’ve read in years.  In the end, the 2004-2010 “Bendis Arc” is one of the greatest in all of Marvel history, in my opinion. If you love these characters, and this universe – you will go nuts over the following story. So much of it is already finding its way into the Marvel movies, and the Avengers cartoon – so you’ll likely be familiar with certain portions of the story without even having read it.  Check it out!

Now – here’s the list – in order – to make it seriously easy to catch up.  I’ve colored the most crucial and pivotal of the titles red if you want to just get the cliff notes version of the story – just read them in order.  Every one of these titles is available on Amazon (or better yet, take the list to your local comic shop and support them!) – just copy and paste the title in their search and away you’ll go.  Enjoy!

 

Marvel Epic List – “Marvel: Disassembled” Story Arc – 2004-2010

1. Avengers Disassembled
2. Avengers Disassembled: Thor
3. Captain America – Omnibus Volume 1 (Hardcover 1-25)
4. Wolverine: Enemy of the State
5. Secret War
6. New Avengers – Volume 1  (Hardcover 1-10)
7. House of M
8. Decimation: X-Men
9. Wolverine: Origin
10. New Avengers – Volume 2 (Hardcover 11-20)
11. Iron Man: Extremis
12. The Road to Civil War
13. Civil War
14. Civil War: Spiderman
15. Civil War: Iron Man
16. New Avengers – Volume 3 (Hardcover 21-31)
17. Incredible Hulk:  Planet Hulk
18. The Death of Captain America – Omnibus (Hardcover 25-42)
19. Mighty Avengers – Volume 1 (Hardcover 1-11)
20. Avengers: The Initiative – Vol 1
21. 32. Avengers: The Initiative – Vol 2
22. X-Men Endangered Species
23. World War Hulk
24. X-Men: Messiah Complex
25. X-Men: Legacy – Divided He Stands
26. Thor (Omnibus 1-12)
27. New Avengers – Volume 4 (Hardcover 32-37)
28. Mighty Avengers: Secret Invasion (Hardcover 12-20)
29. New Avengers – Volume 5 (Hardcover 38-47)
30. Avengers: The Initiative vol 3: Secret Invasion (Paperback 14-19)
31. Secret Invasion
32. X-Force/Cable: Messsiah War
33. New Avengers: Vol 10 Power (Paperback 48-50)
34. Avengers: The Initiative vol 4: Disassembled
35. Dark Avengers  (Omnibus Hardcover – entire run – preorder only)
36. Invincible Iron Man: vol 2   – World’s Most Wanted (Paperback  8-13)
37. Invincible Iron Man: vol 3   – World’s Most Wanted (Paperback  14-19)
38. Thor: Latverian Prometheus  (Paperback 604-606)
39. Captain America Lives (Hardcover Omnibus 43-50 / Reborn 1-5)
40. Invincible Iron Man, vol 4: Stark Disassembled (Paperback 20-24)
41. Siege (Hardcover)
42. New Avengers: Siege (Paperback)
43. Mighty Avengers: Siege (Paperback)
44. Dark Avengers: Siege (Hardcover)
45. Avengers: The Initiative: Siege (Paperback)
46. X-Men: Second Coming
47. Avengers – Vol 1 (Hardcover 1-6)

 

 

Tags: Bendis, Captain America, comics, Iron Man, list, Marvel, Spiderman, Thor, Wolverine

Category: Entertainment