WHY THE F*** ARE COMICS SO INACCESSIBLE mainly talking about the big 2 there’s so many cool stories out there but it’s all turned into a convoluted mess through multiverses like I wanna be able to keep up with marvel and dc but I just don’t see any entry points. Then I see people hyping up big events and stories like age of apocalypse and three jokes but they say u need to catch up on the stories before

Actually no I don’t wanna put comics in a box like that it’s just frustrating

manga > western comics

Because unlike manga, American comics don't have one consist person writing for a single character or storyline/event. Which leads to a lot of inconsistencies and retcons.

Also, consider whenever a new writer is hired, they come in with their ulterior agenda to cement themselves, only for it to be the next writers job to do damage control.

That's how you end up with Spiderman going from being a happily married man, to making a deal with the devil that cost him his marriage because fans complained that making Peter a married adult no longer made him relatable. So things need to be set back to the status quo.

Then there is just the general problem of stories being around since the 40s.

if u trying to read marvel
i think avengers disamebled and new avengers after that is a good jumping on point google a universe reading order
dc mad confusing with all the crisis events but i finally have an understanding of the dc multiverse now lol it only took me reading like 100 issues of random ass stories from the 40s thru the 80s and even still its so many characters with decades of continuity that i barely know anything about

See that’s my issue especially with dc because there’s so many characters out there but it’s hard to get into them because of continuity I mean how does one even get into blue beetle or booster gold. There’s many Batman stories that are hyped up but some of those require you to read back to understand a universe. With marvel one of the biggest events is age of apocalypse why can’t a new reader just hop on and read that? Then there’s so many comics releasing that look so cool but again it’s just a convoluted mess driven by continuity. I heard X men is just as complex along with justice league. This s*** pisses me off because comics look so cool man and I see a lot of new exciting things it’s an art form that I’m interested in but they make it so inaccessible. I see why people just say f*** it I’ll stick to manga but I actually wanna read both

Either start reading when a new arc starts for the character or after a big event and when marvel reboots all their comics again.

comicbookherald.com/the-complete-marvel-reading-order-guide/knights-until-avengers-disassembled

@op this is the first part to a pretty good and not too confusing guide on the marvel universe starting in 1998 so it's more about the modern Era of marvel comics, I've read through like a quarter of it, had to take a break because there's a lot of content but it's really nice

I love both tho but manga just hits different

dawwggg x men so f***ed up
back in the day chris claremont wrote like over 300 issues of multiple x men titles that all tied in with eachother in someway and then u got age of apocalypse and everything after that
i wanna read all the x men s*** at some point in my life but 1 thing i learned from readng comics is u need patience lmao
its already like 17 volumes of tpbs of the hickman x men

for booster gold and blue beetle read justice league international from the 80s
i tried reading dc comics when i was younger like around final crisis and i was so confused lmao u really have to start with older comics before u jump into modern s*** or at least read whatever character u fw wikipedia page

Lol yea I hear dc is waay more complex than marvel universe wise but then again I think they just rebooted again with future slate or something? I know I gotta go far back for age of apocalypse too. I been eyeing Hickman xmen run too with house of x I heard that’s a good jumping on point

Read stuff from Image and Dark Horse instead.

If you talking about events in comics you can literally google marvel events/ dc events and there will be flowcharts on which comics to read and which order from beginning to end.

That’s how I read secret wars 2 . Yes some events run into the middle of seperate comic run stories but the events are mainly contained in those issues without spoiling previous issues related to that characters story run.

I’d pretty much suggest reading secret wars 2 cause that basically changed everything for marvel in 2015.
Or go back in time and read civil war or annihilation

Do I need any background on those stories? They look pretty cool I wanna get to the onslaught stuff as well

Nah as long as you Google a flowchart to the events they have every issue related even the buildup. But certain issues are spin offs tied to the event but unrelated. Like I know there were hella spin-off issues surrounding secret wars 2 but it’s just mainly def contained stuff but extra lore on the universe that doom created. . Mainly fun stories but I don’t think they continue on past secret wars due to the ending. But post secret wars sets up the new continuity with marvel.

Yeah it’s kinda is convoluted but doing research before hand on YouTube or Google/ Reddit helps . I haven’t been reading marvel much lately and I haven’t read any dc at all. If I were to pick it back up again I’d just pick a character I f*** with and just read their best runs with good artist .

That’s kinda another way , there’s too much lore in Marvel/DC universe to where if you reading about one character . You get tidbits of background lore on locations and what happened previous but only hints but comic book writers do the smart thing and post the specific comic and issue regarding significant locations if you want to check out other characters and issues. So really you can just go in blind pick a team or character you fw and just Google the best runs from that character.
Or stick with a writer and read all their works. There are some dope writers and some horrible writers.

I've seen people say start with specific characters' stories and take note of any events/crossovers that are of interest to you

Comic books are very fragmented and every characters story is basically ongoing. There's no ending unless the character is obscure. Which means everytime a character reaches a logical conclusion they have to be reset again. Unlike Manga comics have multiple writers at any given time so a new writer can completely throw out the old material and introduce his version. There's also behind the scenes fukery like editorial mandates that can completely screw with a characters trajectory.

starting marvel with secret wars 2 lowkey sacrilegious dont do that lol

Lol what do you mean? Would dissembled be better?

Gotta get @Tha7osavage opinions in here too

Yeah bro ngl, I’ve always loved comics, but was always intimidated because of the sheer amount of different storylines, continuity issues, etc.

What i CAN recommend is starting at maybe one of the recent reboot phases for Marvel or DC. For example when I got back into reading, DC Rebirth had just came out, and that was a really a great starting point into the universe. Marvel might be a little more tough, but if you really tryna get into reading Hickman’s Secret Wars, then lmk and I’ll get you a reading order. Hickman’s Secret Wars was a f***ing experience bro, I loved every bit of it.

DC been killing it with their recent 12 issue maxi series’, and they’ve been pretty self contained and accessible for the most part. Marvel has had a few too

Image is goated. F*** it, most indie publishers are goated nowadays. Nothing but quality storytelling