{"id":2118,"date":"2014-03-23T14:29:29","date_gmt":"2014-03-23T19:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/?p=2118"},"modified":"2014-03-23T14:30:48","modified_gmt":"2014-03-23T19:30:48","slug":"so-weve-been-reading-a-few-marvel-comics-lately","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/so-weve-been-reading-a-few-marvel-comics-lately\/","title":{"rendered":"So we’ve been reading a few Marvel comics lately"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve gradually been leading my wife into the nerd world over the past few years. It was slow to start, but once she saw Robert Downey Jr. portray a pretty amazing\u00a0Iron Man\/Tony Stark<\/strong>, and then discovered the magic of Tom Hiddleston\u00a0and\u00a0Benedict Cumberbatch,\u00a0she’s been rocketing past me in fandom at a fairly brisk pace<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And really, who can blame her?<\/p>\n

Recently, she decided that investing in the Avengers<\/strong>\u00a0movie\/television universes wasn’t nearly enough, so we’re now getting into some Marvel comics. I wasn’t about to argue with her logic.<\/p>\n

Just a bit of background, once upon a time, I used to collect tons of Marvel comics. I was a huge Marvel fan, especially anything Wolverine, and have stacks of comics in storage (including some classic favorites, Wolverine #50<\/a>, #75<\/a>, and\u00a0#100<\/a>!). I stopped collecting around college, when money was tight (and any extra cash at the time was feeding my Magic: the Gathering<\/strong> habit) and never picked it back up again. In more recent years, I’ve been reading a ton of DC comics because my boss is a huge DC fan and started bringing them all in so we could read them over lunch breaks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What we really needed more than anything were quality starting points. Luckily, Marvel has done something really smart now that they have immensely popular movies out. They’ve started a lot of series over at number 1 to give people some vantage point from which they can springboard into various storyarcs of popular characters. Another smart thing they’ve done is bring in some absolutely top-notch talent to write and draw these series’. So here’s a rundown of some of the stuff we’ve been reading lately.<\/p>\n

Ms. Marvel<\/strong><\/a> –\u00a0This was a no-brainer for us. A great main character who is female, ethnic, and Muslim, but also an ordinary teen who feels socially awkward and writes Avengers fanfic online. An immediately likable and translatable character with a story that is brilliantly written and drawn. We’re definitely enjoying this series.<\/p>\n

Captain Marvel<\/strong><\/a> – I’ve always liked Kelly Sue Deconnick’s work, so seeing that she was taking on Captain Marvel again, and they were restarting with number 1 made this an easy choice. Powerful character and great storytelling.<\/p>\n

Loki: Agent of Asgard<\/strong><\/a> – This is one we picked up because my wife can’t resist Loki (ever since he was played brilliantly by Tom Hiddleston in the movies). After a couple of issues, she’s starting to feel like it’s nothing more than fan service, and while I agree to a certain extent, I can’t help but feel there’s more to it than what we’re seeing so far. I’m willing to give it another couple of months.<\/p>\n

Secret Avengers<\/a><\/strong> – On a whim, I picked up the newest reissue of this series and really enjoyed the hell out of it. Quirky, fast-paced, and definitely not taking itself too seriously, I can see it being a refreshing series among all of the Very Serious Literature\u2122 we see these days. Hanging onto this one until it decides to let me down.<\/p>\n

Iron Man<\/strong><\/a> – I just picked up the soft trade of the “Believe” story arc and the wife has devoured it greedily. I haven’t started yet, but it sounds like it’s another great series that we’ll be following for a while. We’re way behind in this series, and I’m really looking forward to getting to the “Iron Metropolis” story arc because that looks killer.<\/p>\n

Hawkeye<\/strong><\/a> – I will read anything written by Matt Fraction, up to and including a Denny’s menu. Luckily Hawkeye is much more entertaining than that. A great look into the rough life of a superhero with no powers making his way in the big leagues. Hawkeye’s greatest enemy is oftentimes himself, and this series weaves a really interesting story on that concept.<\/p>\n

Saga<\/strong><\/a> – Okay, one non-Marvel series on the list. If you aren’t reading Saga you absolutely need to pick up the trades. This is seriously fantastic craftsmanship in both art and storytelling, and I have a feeling that it’s something that will be a classic once it’s all said and done, and will be talked about for decades following its eventual completion. Such an amazing series, definitely don’t miss out on this one.<\/p>\n

So, yeah, COMICS! We may be adding more to our collections in the coming months. I may have to do a review later in the year of what we may have added, and what we may have dropped in favor of higher-quality series’. In the meantime, please excuse me, I have some Iron Man<\/strong> to catch up on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve gradually been leading my wife into the nerd world over the past few years. It was slow to start, but once she saw Robert Downey Jr. portray a pretty amazing\u00a0Iron Man\/Tony Stark, and then discovered the magic of Tom Hiddleston\u00a0and\u00a0Benedict Cumberbatch,\u00a0she’s been rocketing past me in fandom at a fairly brisk pace. And really, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250],"tags":[696,698,41,216,282,202,697,699,695,694],"class_list":["post-2118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nerd","tag-avengers","tag-captain-marvel","tag-comics","tag-doctor-who","tag-iron-man","tag-marvel","tag-ms-marvel","tag-saga","tag-sherlock","tag-wolverine","last-post"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2118"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2125,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2118\/revisions\/2125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanielpayne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}