Complete Marvel Reading Order

I had meant to share this a while ago but forgot to and then when Paeter was looking into a jumping in point for Marvel comics I thought I'd share.
I don't know if this is what Paeter is looking for but I found this website that gives their thoughts on what order someone should read to understand the Marvel Universe. It's still a work in progress (It goes from 1961-1982 and more are added daily) but you can read the complete order or a list of just the Essentials, or just focus on one character and or group
here is the link
http://cmro.travis-starnes.com/list.php

It's something I've considered doing once I get the money to sign up for "Marvel's Digital Comics Unlimeted"
http://marvel.com/digital_comics/unlimited

I've seen this site, it's great that they did this!

However, for me as a fairly new comics reader that started with DC (and plunged into a large number of DC titles) who wanted to try some Marvel, it was just too overwhelming, all these titles and jumping on points, so I decided I'd go with the Avengers first. Which was difficult enough as it is, since there are so many Avengers titles and reading orders and what not.

So after some research I decided to start with Marvel's Ultimate universe, since it seems most of the Marvel movies are largely based on their Ultimate universe, especially the Avengers Movie.
So I'm now reading Ultimate Comics The Ultimates (The Avengers are called The Ultimates in this universe) - not to be confused with Ultimates 1-3; Ultimate Comics The Ultimates started August 2011 and is written by Jonathan Hickman, pencils by Esad Ribic and colors by Dean White.
That story immediately sucked me in, what a ride! And the artwork is so gorgeous!

So after a couple of issues I felt encouraged to extend my quest into Marvel's regular universe and added three titles to my reading list:

The Avengers (vol. 4, 2010-current)
New Avengers (vol. 2, 2010-current)
Secret Avengers (vol. 1, 2010-current)

I started reading each of them with issue #1 and reading them all parallel to eachother.
I especially like Secret Avengers, the stories are great and the artwork is beautiful. (and on an aside: I also like that Steve Rogers is not wearing spandex but some modernized, cooler version of a hero outfit. Me like!)

When these three series reached the issues that tied in with the Fear Itself event, I expanded my reading list with the Fear Itself main series plus a selected number of tie-ins, which helped me get acquainted with lots of Marvel series quite naturally (after doing some serious research as to the reading order), which has now made it easier for me to pick and choose which ones I like to continue reading.

For instance, Invincible Iron Man and Journey into Mystery are two series that I'm now planning to stick with, thanks to Fear Itself, for these are absolutely great!

I've just finished reading Fear Itself (and am still no where near up to speed with current issues yet ), and in hindsight, this (all of the above) was actually a pretty good way to start with Marvel for me and I can recommend it to my fellow DC comics fans who don't know where to start.

ComiKate, you rock. i will definitely be checking this post again when I'm ready to explore the MU.

Marvel is doing something similar to the DC reboot (only better IMO.) With the upcoming Marvel Now they are setting all their ongoing series back to #1s, making a great jumping on point for new readers, but leaving the continuity the same. In the wake of the Avengers Vs. X-Men storyline a lot is going to change, for example, they are now introducing the Uncanny Avengers, a mix of Avengers and X-Men. I don't believe they have announced their entire list yet (at least I hope not), because there is no Spiderman book yet.

http://marvel.com/marvelnow

Thanks DNArington, I hadn't heard about that yet. Guess Marvel couldn't be doing nothing while DC's New 52 kept beating most of their titles in sales I'm not looking forward to it too much though, since I'm just getting used to their current series. I'm not ready to change all that all over again so soon!

Why do you feel their reboot will be better than DC's?

ComiKate wrote:
Why do you feel their reboot will be better than DC's?

Personally, I'm not keen on the idea of throwing out years and years of continuity to start back at the beginning and for what? It seems like we're back tracking. These characters have changed and grown, but now you are taking them all the way back to the beginning. I figure there better be a really good reason for this, but so far I haven't heard a legitimate reason for DC to reboot. More money seem like the goal, which is all fine and good, but there seems like better ways to go about it...like what Marvel is doing. Keep the continuity and provide a jumping on point for new readers. You will need to tell your readers who this character is agian, but I think you should always be doing that anyway.

The Marvel Season One books are also pretty good reads, for people who just want to read about characters and forget about continuity.

In fact, I just sent a review to Paeter a few minutes ago about them!

DNArington wrote:Marvel is doing something similar to the DC reboot (only better IMO.) With the upcoming Marvel Now they are setting all their ongoing series back to #1s, making a great jumping on point for new readers, but leaving the continuity the same. In the wake of the Avengers Vs. X-Men storyline a lot is going to change, for example, they are now introducing the Uncanny Avengers, a mix of Avengers and X-Men. I don't believe they have announced their entire list yet (at least I hope not), because there is no Spiderman book yet.

http://marvel.com/marvelnow

This sounds interesting Ithink I'm going to check out a couple of the titles since I've been wanting to start reading some Marvel Books