New to Avengers

[tanuvein]

Hello,

First off, I'm sure you've heard this question before and I apologize. Unfortunately, searching for the words 'new' and 'avenger' together doesn't really limit the results any.

Basically I'm a long time comics fan, and pretty into Marvel and occasionally DC. I've recently become more interested in reading a series about a more variety based group of heroes. Tried some older JLA stuff and wasn't that impressed - I didn't feel as if the human side of the characters played much of a role, especially my DC favorites of Batman and Green Lantern. I figured I love Marvel so Avengers is a great place to start, plus I have a ton of comics about Iron Man, Hulk, Spider-Man and (old) Fantastic Four and an extraordinary amout of X-Men comics. Except I don't really know what the difference between one group of Avengers is from another. Unfortunately there is no Avengers omnibus to get me started

I'm not really sure what the differences between the various 'avengers' groups are, other than the Young Avengers whenever they happen to run across the Runaways. I'm a big fan of all the Marvel A-list characters, but I don't think there's many marvel heroes I don't like. I'm basically asking where to start reading the Avengers or various Avenger series, preferably within trades as I rarely buy individual issues and then only if that's the only way they are released. My favorite Marvel characters outside of the X-Men's main team are Iron Man, Daredevil and Moon Knight if that helps any.

[scottharris]

Howdy, welcome to the boards. Everyone here is a big Avengers fan, so it's always nice to see someone else hopping aboard.

This is a particularly weird time to try to answer your question about the differences between the teams, though, because Marvel is canceling all the current Avengers titles next month and replacing them with new ones. So nobody is really sure what the new teams will be, who will be on them or what the differences are between them. The new titles will be Avengers, New Avengers, Secret Avengers and Avengers Academy. In general I suspect that Avengers will be a more classic lineup with Iron man, Thor and Captain America, while New Avengers will continue the current New Avengers stuff with Luke Cage and his crew. Secret Avengers is anyone's guess and Avengers Academy will probably combine Avengers: Initiative and Young Avengers into one book.

But we'll kind of all be finding out together.

As far as where to jump on with the series, that's probably going to cause a bit of a debate. if you like the current stuff, I'd say New Avengers #1 would be the place as it kicks off everything that has happened since 2004. That series eventually branches out after Civil War to include spinoff titles Mighty Avengers (which was billed as more traditional Avengers type team book but kind of turned into just a showcase for second stringers... in my opinion, some people like it) and Avengers: Initiative (which started as a way to train superheroes for government sanctioned hero jobs and became kind of a catchall for all sorts of weird forgotten characters and hangers on; this title has a lot of fans but it's very offbeat and kind of non-linear). Eventually Dark Reign spawned Dark Avengers, which is villains pretending to be the Avengers (in other words, it's Thunderbolts). But all of that essentially started with New Avengers #1, so that would be the place to begin.

Young Avengers was basically it's own separate thing for the short time it was ongoing, and can be read on its own.


Around these parts, of course, most of us aren't big fans of what's been going on at Marvel recently, preferring the original Avengers from back in the day. If you're more into traditional superheroics, a couple places you might think about starting would be with Kurt Busiek and George Perez's Avengers #1 relaunch from 1997. Their run together has great art and some really cool stories; Busiek struggled a bit with the pacing by his own admission, so some of the earlier issues aren't quite as awesome as they could be, but for my money his last arc in Avengers #41-55 is one of the greatest Avengers stories ever and his whole run is good start to finish.

Also, if you're a DC fan, the four issue Avengers/JLA mini-series by Busiek and Perez is fantastic while also touching on a lot of background for both teams in a way that's not a data dump. It will give you a good idea of what the classic Avengers team was about.

Another suggestion would be Joe Casey's Earth's Mightiest Heroes eight issue limited series, which retells the events from volume one of Avengers #1-16 in a more modern way; that would give you a good idea of how the team started and the story is pretty good.


Those would probably be my suggestions. There are a number of earlier, great Avengers stories that have been collected, but most of them are stand-alone things; starting with Mansion Siege, for instance, would give you a classic story but there's not really any way for you to read the follow-ups to it without tracking down the back issues, so those types of collections may not be a good starting place. And while Avengers Forever is one of my favorite comics ever and provides a pretty detailed overview of the team's history and their major villains, unless you are already into the Avengers it might prove to be too confusing.

Hope you enjoy your reading.

[humanbelly]

Nicely synopsized (coined word?), Scott.

The only thing I might add, Tanuvein, is that- if you're truly looking for a reading-intensive, total immersion experience, you could always go to issue #1 by picking up the Essential Avengers volumes, and going as far as they do.

Beyond that, there's the online comic book library that Sharkar posted the addy for around here somewhere (htmlcomics, freecomicsonline--- something like that), although reading via a computer moniter isn't quite as satisfying. But it's a darn sight better than spending the time AND fortune tracking down hundreds of back issues. I mean, it's a library-- that really sums it up. Good starting spots in the deeper history? Well, that might even be an interesting topic of its own.

I would say around issue #50, when Roy Thomas & John Buscema were just starting to improve the book by leaps and bounds.

Possibly around or after issue #100, just after the Kree/Skrull War, and there was very much a feeling of moving on to new & different things. (Or possibly with issue #87 or 88-- and catch the whole war in its glory).

Hmm. And possibly anytime a new team is introduced creates a good jumping-on spot-- although my son's clamoring for the computer, so I can't give you any specific numbers at the moment. . . heh, sorry-!

(ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT ALREADY! Y'KNOW, THERE'S OTHER FOLKS LIVE HERE, TOO-!!!)

HB

[badgermaniac]

My best advice is to start where I started...which is right around issue 150. There is some great stuff there with Ultron, Nefaria, Korvac, etc.

Everything from about 150 to 180 or thereabouts really ties together nicely. I believe parts of that run is out in the TPB, but I am not sure (since I already own the original books).