Marvel comic recommendations

[Brad Redfield]

Heya!


I got my tax return today and decided to finally start picking up various storylines/origin stories in the classic Marvel Universe that either I've read before (but never owned) or never read. What I'm looking for are the best storylines collected into volumes/collections. I usually lean towards older stuff (pre-90s comic book crash to be more precise) but I'm open to new stuff as well... I'm also really looking into getting some Hulk stuff that isn't Planet Hulk.


I have the following:


Marvel Masterworks

The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 1 - 2

Fantastic Four Vol. 1 - 2

The Avengers Vol. 1 - 3

Silver Age Captain America Vol. 1

The Invincible Iron Man Vol. 1

The Mighty Thor Vol. 1

The X-Men Vol. 1

The Uncanny X-Men (Aka Giant Size X-Men) Vol. 1



Collected Storylines

Spider-Man: Kraven's Last Hunt

Spider-Man: Birth of Venom

Spider-Man: Death of the Staceys

The Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 1

Avengers: The Origin

Captain America: Winter Soldier Ultimate Collection


Now, this is my current to-buy list:


Thor Visionaries: Walter Simonson Vol. 1 - 2

Iron Man: Extremis

Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle

Iron Man Epic Collection: Stark Wars (Armor Wars Prologue and Armor Wars)

Spider-Man: Origin of the Hobgoblin

The Avengers: Kree/Skrull War

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear - Frank Miller

Daredevil: Born Again

Wolverine - Claremont/Miller

Captain America: Man Out of Time

Silver Sufer Epic Collection: When Calls Galactus (The Coming of Galactus and various Silver Surfer stories)

X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills

Infinity Gauntlet

The Death of Captain Marvel


There are some books I would like to get but seem to be out-of-print and go for a pretty penny so, for now at least, these are out of my list until they either go back into print or are published into new, affordable collections:

The Avengers: Under Siege

Marvel Masterworks Daredevil Vol. 1

Marvel Masterworks The Incredible Hulk Vol. 1

Marvel Masterworks Dr. Strange Vol. 1

The Avengers: Ultron Unlimited

So yeah, definitely looking for some good Hulk books (Perhaps Hulk Visionaries Peter David/John Byrne?) and others that aren't Spidey-related!

[Glantern]

You've got a pretty great list there. I'd also suggest:

X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga

X-Men: Proteus (my personal favorite X-Men story)

John Byrne's Fantastic Four

Avengers: Celestial Madonna

Avengers - West Coast: Family Ties

Captain America: Secret Empire

For Hulk, David/Byrne is pretty great. I'd also suggest Len Wein's run, which I believe is collected in Essential Hulk vol. 6.

[bigvis497]

Get the Marvel Epic Collections, you can find them cheap on Amazon.com. Society of Serpents is a really fun read.

[hellpop]

Byrne's Fantastic Four is a great suggestion. Undoubtedly a highlight of both Byrne and the FF's careers. Another great John Byrne run is his Captain America book with Roger Stern. Can't remember the collection name though.

I would strongly recommend Kurt Busiek's Avengers (AKA, the last time the Avengers were the Avengers, if you know what I mean). Don't skip out on Avengers Forever either, which might be my favorite Avengers story of all time.

For modern Marvel, Jason Aaron's Thor and Mark Waid's Daredevil are easily the best of the bunch. Oh, and speaking of Waid, look for his Captain America work, particularly the first run with Ron Garney.

For a suggestion that's a bit out of the ordinary, check out Mark Gruenwald's Squadron Supreme. It was Marvel's one real entry in the superhero deconstructionist movement of the mid '80s, and in it's own way stacks up very well to Watchmen. I daresay it's the best comic Marvel has ever published.

That's just off the top of my head!