Comic confusion.....
 

I am new to comics....please explain something to me...I am very confused. Why do some superheroes have like 4 or 5 comics going on at the same time??

There are like 4 or 5 Spiderman comics and 4 or 5 Xmen comics....which is the main storyline?? Are the events that occur in all of them attached to the "main storyline"?? It confuses the crap out of me. thanks for the help.

It all comes down to money. Marvel and DC publish multiple versions of their big franchise characters because people will buy them.

In a nutshell...

Spider-Man - The main Spider-Man book title is Amazing Spider-Man, as its been the running since the 1960s. Each title Spider-title has its own creative team, its own storyline, and its own direction but take place in the same universe with the same version of the character. So an event in Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man could be referenced later in Amazing Spider-Man.

X-Men - X-Men is different than a solo title, as each X-Men book has its own unique member roster. Marvel has dozens of X-Men characters running around at any given time, so it's not difficult to fill the teams.

Ultimate - Marvel also has a line of "Ultimate" books that take place in a universe seperate from the rest of the Marvel line. Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men, Ultimate Fantastic Four, and The Ultimates.

Batman - Like Spider-Man above, the various Batman books each have their own things going on, but all take place within the same continuity. (Legends of the Dark Knight, though, covers -- or at least covered -- the early exploits of Batman.)

Superman - For a while, DC had four Superman books running concurrently. And unlike Batman, they functioned as a weekly comic series, with one leading directly into the other. I don't believe they still operate this way, though.

All-Star - DC's All-Star line is set up similarly to Marvel's Ultimate line. Maybe. So far it includes All-Star Superman, which serves as a vehicle for Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely to tell their own stories outside of the regular DC continuity. All-Star Batman, by Frank Miller and Jim Lee, I'm not sure about whether its supposed to be its own continuity thing like Morrison and Quitely's, or if supposed to take place early in Batman's career like LOTDK.

Probably not terribly clear, but if you start reading comics it's something you'll pick up on before too long.

so if you just read like 1 spiderman and 1 xmen comic...would you be lost some issues? i just don't have the money to buy all of them. which would you suggest if i could just get one of each?

Not to threadcrap, but if you only had money for one or two titles, I wouldn't waste it on any superhero books.

I'd also start off with a trade paperbook or two to see if you liked the completed stories.

Maybe read a couple trades in a Borders or other bookstore or library and see which ones you like enough to buy?

I usually stick to the original titles, like Batman, Superman, Amazing Spider-Man etc. Always seems like the important stories are in the main titles. When I was broke in college I would get a team book like JLA, to read lots of characters at once.

I too do not wish to threadcrap as enjoyable as it is, but Trevor has a good point. This isn't a cheap hobby, and it gets more expensive every year. You will also eventually be almost forced to buy additional books when your title spills over into some big "event" like Civil War or Identity Crisis.

Amazingly my local library carries a nice collection of comic books and trades. I would make sure a character is your cup of tea before investing any money.

i have read the main story line of Civil War and thought it was great. i have been reading Planet Hulk now trying to get ready for World War Hulk...I hope it does not explode into a million different comics like Civil War.

It's not quite as bad as Civil War, but ...

http://www.marvel.com/news/comicstories.850

hmmm...interesting to see Ghost Rider issue in World War Hulk list.

This is why the only superhero books I'm currently following are Whedon and Cassaday's ASTONISHING X-MEN and Morrison and Quitely's ALL-STAR SUPERMAN.

So much easier and cheaper to just stick with the cream of the crop.

Well, I don't think you HAVE to buy every one of the crossovers for this thing. Unless you really really care about how WWH is affecting the Young Avengers or Heroes for Hire. I'm planning on just buying the regular Hulk series (which I've already been buying steady for years), and probably the main WWH mini series. Frontline (isn't that pet medicine?) and Gamma Corps (whatever that is) can kiss my butt.

i will just buy just the main story stuff for WWH. i am reading Planet Hulk now and it is COMPLETELY AWESOME!!! I have turned into a huge hulk fan.

Is Planet Hulk available in TPB at all? If so, is there a listing?

You poor bastard. As a comic book reader for almost 30 years myself, my suggestion is to stop. Stop NOW.

But if you must read comics, pick up some trade paberback collections, and stay away from the monthly floppies.

Here are some suggestions:

Watchmen
Dark Knight Returns (NOT "Strikes Again")
X-Men: Dark Pheonix Saga
Daredevil: Born Again
Marvels and/or Kingdom Come
Sandman
Swamp Thing (Alan Moore issues)

rotfl

Comics are like a geeky cocaine. After about 15 years, I tried giving up on comics when I moved into my house and that lasted maybe a year. I've been back with it for 5-6 years since then.

Is there a 12 step program?

Yup. I yell at my mom every so often, for buying me a copy of Action Comics in 1985...

That ad for Crisis #7 freaked the hell out of me too

Glad that I found this thread, since I was basically going to post the same question.

Since I heard a lot of the hype regarding Civil War, I was thinking about checking them out. When I looked, it seemed like there were only seven issues, but then I realized that there were a large number of related issues in other series. It went from something that I wanted to read to something that seemed a bit to daunting based on the number of related issues.

So is there a website that has a list of all of the current series that are going on for the major comics, or is Josh-da-man's list pretty comprehensive? Also, how long do typical storylines last, in number of issues?

Ok, I have to ask...Do you think comics are going to be OVER $2.99 an issue soon? It seems to me that quite a few books are coming out at $3.99 lately. Do you think the next raise in price will hit $3.29, maybe even $3.49? Not sure how others feel, but the next price increase is going to severely change my spending habit on comics.....

Like I said in another thread, the next across-the-board price hike to $3.25 or $3.49 for comics, and I'll be slashing a lot of titles off the purchase list.

wlj: Just buy the trades. The good thing is that you have decades of comics to familiarize yourself with, so you can go with the series you like at prices that aren't outrageous.

Comic newbies,

I would heartily recommend that you follow slop101's advice and start off with some truly great comics from the recent past.

Once you read some of those classics, you will know what to expect for your money, and won't fall into the trap of buying mediocre comics.

quality of current comics rant deleted for fear of this forum's Marvel zombies

I agree, save for one thing. Watchmen is fantastic, we all know that, but I think it reads so much better after you've been in comics a little while (and read some older stuff) so you can really see what the book is saying and how it capitalized on all the medium has to offer. You can read Watchmen, never having read another comic, and still enjoy the story. But once you read it after being familiar with funnybooks, it's so much more powerful.

So actually I would say to read it early on and be wowed by the story itself. Read some other comics. Come back to it a year or two later and read it again (along with some annotations or online reading guide) and then get your fucking mind blown.

slop pointed out some of the best classics to read, because none of those books feel dated (much) even having been around for 20+ years. Sometimes people will say "New to comics? Read Kirby and Stan's Fantastic Four". That is a great run of comics, but c'mon that isn't the first thing someone new to the medium should start out reading.

Good point on Watchmen, and on the really old classics.

I have typed and deleted a few times here, and will choose my words carefully. But I am just so saddened to see someone new to comics reading mainstream superhero stuff only, when the majority of it is so incredibly bad. Now, I realize that 90% of everything is crap. Nevermind, my mind isn't working well today.

You don't have to read all those comics to get the entire World War Hulk storyline. You ONLY need to read the World War Hulk miniseries. That's it! Why don't people understand that? Civil War was the same way.

As for the characters with several different titles, for the most part each title's storyline is kept to that title. So, again, you only need to buy one title to get the entire story if that's all you can afford.

You only need to know one thing:

Hypertime. It's all true.