Thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC’s extremely poor attempts at copying it, comic book properties have never been more successful! Ten years ago, nobody but hardcore comic book nerds knew Iron Man’s real name, or Harley Quinn’s origin, or even the simple fact that Thor is a Marvel superhero and not just a Norse god. Today, we’re all familiar with Tony Stark’s eccentric antics in and out of his suit, we all know about the abusive relationship between the artist formerly known as Dr. Harleen Quinzel and her puddin’, and many of us ponder what would happen if a baby tried to lift Mjolnir. But how many of us have actually sat down and read a comic book featuring any of those characters? Despite the fact that only his three solo movies – not counting all the other movies he’s appeared in or had starring roles in – made over $2.5 billion dollars at the box office, the latest issue of Iron Man’s solo comic book series that I could find any sales information about, “Invincible Iron Man #11”, sold only 50,000 copies. But honestly, we can’t really hold that against the Armored Avenger, since comics don’t generally sell that much in the first place. The best-selling comic of the same month, “Justice League #1”, sold only 200,000 copies, and that’s considering the fact that #1 issues typically sell a lot more than their subsequent parts.
A big part of the reason why comics are so unpopular in comparison to movies is that anyone can watch a movie. You can see “Iron Man” and understand it, you can see “Doctor Strange” this November and understand it, hell, you can even see big ensemble movies like “The Avengers” or “Captain America: Civil War” and understand them, even if you’ll lose some of the nuance. You can’t really do that with comics. Right now, Marvel Comics are having an event called “Civil War II”, in which Iron Man and Captain Marvel go to war over a young Inhuman who can see the future. If you’ve got no idea who those characters are, then you’ve got no hope of following “Civil War II”, and it REALLY doesn’t help that anyone who is anyone shows up in this crossover (Thanos, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Hulk, Hawkeye, the X-Men…), so a casual reader has no chance of getting into it. Quite a lot of comics have been built up like that, which alienates audiences.
But fear not, dear readers, because while it may be a bit intimidating, it’s certainly not impossible to get into comics! In fact, it might be easier than you think! Let me explain what you need to do. Getting into Marvel is actually absurdly easy, since they have PLENTY of series that are good jumping-on points for new readers. While the aforementioned “Civil War II” and “Invincible Iron Man” aren’t really good places to go, since as I said they tend to rely on a LOT of pre-existing characters and lore that you may not be familiar with, a lot of Marvel’s series tend to exist on their own while only occasionally crossing over with other properties. Take “Ms. Marvel”, for example, in which a young comic book nerd finds herself transformed into an Inhuman overnight and takes on the mantle that Captain Marvel used to have. You don’t really need to be familiar with neither the Inhumans nor Captain Marvel to understand Ms. Marvel’s adventures, as both of them are explained quite well within her own narrative. Other series, such as “The Runaways”, “Sentinel”, “Young Avengers”, “New Avengers” (the 2015 series), “Avengers Academy” and its sequel “Avengers Arena”, “Alias”, “Hawkeye” (the 2012 series) and many more operate on the same principle, allowing readers to easily get into their main narratives while occasionally introducing characters who may be relevant in other titles. For example, let’s say that you decide to read “Hawkeye” (as you should, because it’s one of the greatest comic book runs of all time) and fall in love with Kate Bishop, the female Hawkeye and Clint Barton’s partner. You can then decide to trace her roots back to “Young Avengers”, and that series can introduce you to Hulkling and Wiccan, who continue their adventures in “New Avengers”. So, just like that, very naturally, you’re exploring the Marvel universe little by little. And the whole process is made absurdly easy by the fact that 95% of all comics Marvel has ever published are available on Marvel Unlimited for an absurdly cheap Netflix-style subscription fee, so all you have to do is sign up for that incredible service and start digging! If you don’t like a particular series, move onto another – as you read, you’re bound to encounter plenty of characters and teams that you’re interested in.
DC, on the other hand, is a bit more complicated, since A) they don’t have a subscription service like Marvel Unlimited, so you need to take a lot more risks with their comics, and B) they really like to reboot their universe every few years, with the last time being just a few weeks ago, with “Rebirth”. My advice to you would be to ignore “Rebirth” for the time being. Despite the fact that reviews for the “Rebirth” series have been excellent, there’s only 1 or 2 issues per series out at the moment, so that’s not going to really satisfy you in any way. Instead, I’d personally go back to the last reboot, the New 52, and start from there. The New 52 is of mixed quality, but I don’t think there’s anything in there that’s just awful, and best of all, most of their titles are very self-contained. For example, if you pick up “Suicide Squad”, you’re not going to get an event in the middle of it that derails the story, you’re just going to be reading about “Suicide Squad”. There are the occasional crossovers (“Suicide Squad” in particular did an excellent crossover with Resurrection Man, and the Bat-family titles like to cross paths every once in a while), but for the most part, just pick a superhero and have fun with them! If you like the Flash, start reading the Flash New 52 series. If you like Batman, go read Batman. There’s lots of great books to choose from, so just pick one and enjoy it! Or you can go for something a little more obscure, like “Animal Man” or “Gotham Academy”, both of which are excellent! So, what are you waiting for? Go read some comics!