Getting into Mainstream Comics?

I'm mostly talking about The Main branch of DC and Marvel, I can't really find myself interested in the universes of the companies as a whole.

It wouldn't be so bad if every series was its own individual comic but since its all connected then you have characters making cameos every other issues, and then you have those crazy crossover event that may alter the comic so you have to read them, but then it becomes an even bigger problem because now I have to follow another story with characters I know nothing about.

I mean seriously Wolverine makes a god damn appearance in every other comic I've attempted to read so far, plus since to read just The Amazing Spiderman would take me at least a week since it is over 600 issues(not including the other spiderman series)plus to actually get all the issues would cost me an arm and a leg and require me to search the ends of the earths to get them, plus its gonna have those old school ads in them so that makes it even harder to read through.

How do the more hardcore comic book readers keep up with it all, do you keep like a list of them all are know some dude with an extensive collection?

It's not nearly as hard to understand as nonfans like to pretended.

Ray Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond often times appeared in King of Queens and the main character from that, Doug Heffernen, appeared in Everybody Loves Raymond. Did you need to keep up with both shows to understand what was happening? NO!

I mean let's take a look at my Pull list, each month I purchase;

Invincible Adventure Comics Amazing Spider-Man Booster Gold Batman and Robin Red Robin Batgirl New Avengers Superman Justice League of America The Legion of Superheroes Supergirl Superman/Batman Avengers Detective Comics Teen Titans Batman

Plus three or four miniseries each month.

But do you see? The only books I buy are the characters I like and any teams they are on plus their spin-offs. But you don't even have to do all that.

Honestly, I never read Blackest Night or Brightests Day (the two most recent crossover events), I didn't read Night because it was already half way through when I got back into comics and I didn't read Day because it obviously served as a sequel to day.

So really, if you want to get into comics, just a pick a character or two, wait till the current story arc is over (for example the Amazing Spider-Man starts a new story line in issue #649, this November).

Really, all you're going to miss are a few cheeky references!

As far as big crossovers affecting so many titles, if you're not interested in the crossover itself, I recommend just reading its Wikipedia entry. Usually that will give you all the information you really need to know.

First off, you don,t have to buy all the 600 issues of Amazing Spider-man to start readin Spider-man. If a writer refers to an old issue, if he is in anyway good, he'll sum up the important parts for you. If you really wanna read old stuff, you can, there are hardcovers and tradepaperbacks for that.

Second, don,t worry about the crossover or the fact Wolverine appears in five comics this month. When you read wolverine in one book, they won,t reference his other books intensively.

Most book are stand-alone, meaning that you don't need intensive knowledge to know what's going on. Sure, one issue might be a crossover tie-in, but more often than not those are still focused only on the character you're reading. The big epic crossover appears in the book that bears the crossover title. Again, the relevant info will be given to you as a form of "Previously On".

So your best chance is to choose a character you like, and buy his/her book. You should start at the beginning of an arc. Fortunately, that's easy to do: just go on the DC and Marvel book, and check the upcoming months. You'll now by reading the description when an arc begins.

However, if you want to read stories without having to track comics each months, you might be better with TPB, i.e. collected storylines. Most TPB are one interconnected and close-ended story, and those that aren' are often numbered. TPB range from 15-25 dollars for about 6 issues, sometimes with a few extra like concept art, script pages etc. Hardcover are the same thing, except with more extras and a harder cover (duh)

There are no mainstream comics now. There are characters that are mainstream, but sales of comics have been niche for years. And despite how some like to defend them, even getting into them is one of the barriers keeping them from getting back into the mainstream.

That's just responding to the thread title though, not the subject.

^^ It may be perfectly possible to understand what's going on in a comic book series without reading the ones it crosses over with, but it can often end up being very unsatisfying. Between one chapter and the next, some major, life-changing event will occur to the Main Characters, but we don't get to see it because it happened in a different series. Or, instead of getting a climactic showdown with the Big Bad, we get a reveal that they're affiliated with a villain from another series, and the actual climax is going to occur there, making the whole Story Arc seem like a "Shaggy Dog" Story.

Yes, a good writer will make sure you know what happened and can still follow what's going on, but that doesn't make the dramatic effect any less ruined.

I never followed a cross-over live in my life, and I was never unsattisfied. But that's me.

The OP asked how to get in without buying 5 crossover. I told him. You don't need them. If you wanna read them, you can always wait for the trades- it'll often be cheaper and more convenient.

We use the term mainstream comic because those are the comics most people know they exist, even if they never read it. Comics are having a hard time because the entire publishing industry is having a hard time. And comic-book readers being usually good with the web, getting pirated scans is easier for them than, say, Mary Higgins Clark readers.

Pirating is only a problem when you don't have enough people interested in paying for something. That seems obvious, but it shows that the audience willing to pay isn't really good right now.

Also, using "mainstream" in that context does fit.

The ineterconectedness is why I love it though. Isolated comics alway kind sucked for me. (Some of Waid's work on TDK non with standing.)

The Shared Universe aspect is great. It's when it turns into all Continuity Lockout, and "This vital aspect of Crisis of the Infinite Crossovers isn't actually in the main issues, but in Captain Justice #234, so you have to give us more money just to know what the hell is going on", and the worst of Running the Asylum that makes me hate it all.

^^ It may be perfectly possible to understand what's going on in a comic book series without reading the ones it crosses over with, but it can often end up being very unsatisfying. Between one chapter and the next, some major, life-changing event will occur to the Main Characters, but we don't get to see it because it happened in a different series. Or, instead of getting a climactic showdown with the Big Bad, we get a reveal that they're affiliated with a villain from another series, and the actual climax is going to occur there, making the whole Story Arc seem like a Shaggy Dog Story.

True that. The most recent  ^*

The Wolverine part of Wolverine and Deadpool #11 ends with Wolvie stranded in Canada, and Daken deciding to turn against everybody and make the world his oyster. #12 opens with Wolverine, having gotten back to civilisation, being told by Nick Fury that Daken has joined the Dark Avengers under Norman Osborne and is posing as Wolverine.

The comic itself justifies this by literally saying "You did read Avengers Unconquered #23, right? We did warn you!" Now, while reading Avengers Unconquered isn't necessary to follow the story in Wolverine it would have been nice if such a huge, important event was, you know, shown.

Not to sound like an old fuddy, but in the early-to-mid 00s, we didn't even get THAT anymore. It's only recently that DC and Marvel started putting those footnotes referencing other books back in. You were just SOL before.

A couple of years ago I engaged in some computer piracy and dowloaded like every issue of, say, Amazing Spider-Man from the web in one big dolly. (Yes, I'm a criminal.)

Now, when reading that I noticed a number of things. And one of them was that the closer to the present I got, the less of the story I got, because the more comics didnt finish stories, they referred to issues of other comics. Not just other Spiderman comics, any old comics. (Avengers was, of course, worse than Spiderman, being more connected to the general Marvel Universe.)

It HAS become a feature of modern American superhero comics that the universe is connected. It's not a bug, it's a feature, and because of that, as can be seen in this thread, fans seem unable to understand how that could be a problem, unfairly comparing their own situation to that of a newbie. "Oh, you only need to go on the Intarwebs and STUDY to get the comics, is that so hard?" Uhm, yeah... It is very easy to underestimate the threshold for someone else to get into something you have done yourself for a long time (a lifetime, in my case), especially if what you are doing does not seem like "work" (hey, you are READING COMICS, how hard could that be?)

Since I actually like and read American superhero comics, and partially like and read them *because* the intercontinuity, I hope I am just not shot down as a hater or something when I say this instead: Yeah, you will actually have to work for this - for this to be really good, y'know, not just "Oh, now I get why Spidermonkeyman HATES Captain Doctor!" but to see the point of it. You will have to read more than one comic, or if those comics seem to be to expensive or suck ass, check out the internet, where nice and hard-working people will have provided you with synopsises (sp?), reviews and sometimes analyses. And studying up on the history of the character can actually be rewarding, since today the comics are full of back-references, not neccessarily to an old panel in a specific book, but in a more general way, from a specific character to a whole trend.

So, unlike others, I want to say that "Yeah, getting into mainstream comics actually takes some work. But try - it might be worth it. And if it isn't, now you have an informed opinion as to why you think comics suck. Informed opinions are not much respected on the Internet, but they are useful."

(And yeah, I guess it might be good for publishers if it was easier to get into their work. But people seem to not lack time to be intense fans for other things, and their current base of comic nerds would protest for rational reasons.)

Erik

synopsises (sp?)

synopses.

A good Batman arc, once you know the basics (which you probably do if you know the movies, DCAU, or whatever) is the arc of Contagion through No Man's Land.

Read Annihilation from Marvel Comics. If you like it, try their post annihilation cosmic titles aand events.