Friday, June 15, 2012

Welcome to Marveling Comics

Until now, I have never really done the comic book thing.  I am a comic noob, you could say.  As a child, my brother was really into them.  Shortly after purchase, he'd cautiously place them into protective sleeves with the intensity of an EOD Technician, watching their corners for any sign of contact with another surface.  Bags of Captain Crunch with Crunch Berries would be scattered about our pantry with their useless boxes missing neatly cut rectangles from each side.  To him, this was happiness.  To me, this was just weird.

In reality, I was probably a little jealous.  I marveled when he told me about the story of the Infinity Gauntlet for the first time. The concept had me very intrigued.  I was familiar with some of the characters from movies.  Other characters, like the X-Men, were favorites of my brother's.  We would often find ourselves watching the X-Men cartoon on Saturday mornings, musing about who had the stronger power; Magneto or Professor X.  The discussions always agreed on Magneto, btw.  He has a guy you simply hated to root against.

I have always been a completionist though.  If I began reading something, I wanted to absorb every ounce of it.  I want to root down every distant reference and pull them together like some crazy comic book obsessed Sherlock Holmes.  Its probably more of an OCD, really.  It would have to be, to even consider trying to read the entire Marvel Comic chronology in order.

I got the idea when I stumbled across Travis Starnes' "The Complete Marvel Reading Order".  Its a website dedicated to determining the optimal reading order for the major story arcs within the Marvel universe from its dawn of creation.  He calls it a "massive work in progress".  I call it insanity.  Nice job Travis, keep up the good work!

So my plan from here on out will be to read a few comics and post about them each week.  I fully expect that workload to increase as I gain interest in particular plot-lines.  I will briefly outline the comics that I have read, give my own description of the events that have unfolded that week, and provide any immediate thoughts I have about the series up to that point.

As a note, I will occasionally be adding comics to the reading order as I go along.  Travis's list focuses on the story arc of the main Marvel universe, but I am reading this for general enjoyment of the Marvel universe.  With this in mind, I might occasionally wander off the reservation with something that strikes my interest at the time.

I hope my efforts on this blog will act as inspiration or at least a reference for fans of these comic books. Thank you all for joining me on this massive journey! 






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