Before we get started, this post is dedicated to Mary, one of my favorite people. A big ol' congrats on finishing law school, champion. Luh yew.
People think about comics the wrong way. They think they're incredibly dense, childish, inconsequential stories with the pathos of WWE's Monday Night RAW, and the ethos of... well, WWE Wednesday Smackdown Live.
In a perfect world, every day is Rusev Day
Comics are deep if you want them to be. They're light and fluffy if you want them to be too. The only criticism I get at comics is that they're confusing, which is totally fair. I fucking love comics and even I get confused as hell sometimes trying to understand all the characters, their motivations, why I should give a shit, and about 10,000,000 other things fiction can make you feel.
But there was this pretty incredible run that Marvel Comics had from 2004 until about 2012 that is essentially one long story told by the same key people. And the cool thing? That story is literally as big as you want it to be. Seriously - you can just read the event storylines and you can understand perfectly well what's happening (with minimal Wikipedia searches).
2004 wasn't just a good year for comics either...
Or, let's say you really dig Spider-Man, you can throw in the Spider-man issues and get an even bigger story while you read the event storylines. And then you can add in Cap too. And Iron Man, and fuck, who are The Runaways? I don't know, but I like the art style, better add them too. Don't give a shit about the X-Men or the Guardians of the Galaxy? Sweet, bud - don't sweat it, just skip it.
But Mary is bored. She just graduated law school and even though she should be studying for the BAR exam like immediately, that's the last fucking thing she wants to do, because she's a sane human being. At least, as sane as any human being who just spent three years killing themselves in law school can be.
So for her, I'm laying out the whole story. The whole goddamn Marvel Universe as it mattered over eight years.
Because you know what? It was a really, really special time. It made me fall in love with the medium, and it really should never have happened. Marvel was in bankruptcy in the late 90's after the comic speculator bubble burst and things seemed bleak as hell. They cut their publishing line and instead of flooding the market with titles, they very deliberately brought in new voices to tell good stories and get people excited with fewer, higher quality books.
And then they brought in Brian Michel Bendis. From 2004 to 2012, there's one story being told, both under his name and others, but it's all thanks to that sweet little bald genius from Cleveland.
This post will have issue numbers for people reading on the Marvel Unlimited app, as well as the collection names if you want them in trade from, In Stock Trades. I didn't get paid to say that, I just really love that site. Also, there are digital editions on Kindle that are diiiiirt cheap.
I'm not going to talk spoilers because the point of comics is to read them. Some of my stuff might be listed out of order for your convenience not for your detriment or simply because it's been almost 15 years. Bendis' Daredevil is on this list, and you know what? If you think it's so good that you can't put it down, then you not put it down. Comics are supposed to be fun, so have fun.
Also, there are tie-ins to some of these events. Some are worth reading, some I don't feel are, but it's totally up to you. I'll try to point you in the direction of which tie-ins I think are necessary, and which I think are worth it. But also, if you see that a future issue is a tie-in to a larger event like House of M or Civil War or something, then it's up to you. I recommend catching up, but again - you're an adult and you can do what you want. This is supposed to be fun, dammit.
Here's a little glossary for some words I'm going to be using:
Issue: a single, numbered book that's part of a specific series or an ongoing book's volume.
Arc: a bunch of issues in an ongoing that tell larger story. They're at least two issues long in an ongoing series.
Ongoing Series: A series that comes out every month.
Mini-series: a self contained story in its own book focusing on either one specific or a variety characters. It's predetermined in length and can last most commonly from 2-8 issues.
Maxi-series: Same as a miniseries but longer, anywhere from 8-24 issues.
Volume: A volume is a series, and it usually changes in regards to a change of creative direction at the publisher. For example, the first volume of Avengers started at Marvel in the 60's. Then Volume 2 started in the 90's after a big cataclysmic event. Then when they wanted a more traditional avengers series, they started volume 3.
Vol. (2): a volume can also be a collection of an ongoing in trade paperback or hardcover. When a book does bonkers numbers its collected in a hardcover first, but most books are eventually collected in trade. For example - New Avengers Vol. 1: Breakout, New Avengers Vol. 2 The Sentry, etc.. I'll abbreviate to Vol. for the sake of clarity in these posts.
Publishing Initiative: Think of this as a small creative direction that affects multiple books. It could be something as big as an earthquake hitting New York or as small as a single character goes missing, but the effect is explored across multiple titles.
And for the sake of these posts:
#. Numbered and this size means 'must read'.
This size means means 'good read'.
Before we get things started remember, these books were coming out concurrently. So some details may be lost as you navigate from series to series, because the trades are collected as stories, not as publishing date, but hey, you don't care - you just want the kickass stories.
1. Secret War
(Secret War 1-5) This 2004 mini series was one of the first real post-modern works that Marvel released, and it really cut the distance between our reality and the mainline Marvel Universe's fiction. This wasn't a bunch of characters you've never heard of, this wasn't the Ultimate Universe, this was the main Marvel timeline and it was the characters you've known for 40+ years doing real shit. It became less about a fantastic universe of colorful superheroes doing good and more about our post-9/11 reality bleeding over to our fiction, to a place where we had an answer to that skepticism, pessimism, and horror in the form of throwing superheroes at it. Also, Gabrielle Del'Otto's art is one-of-a-kind, and his more-or-less photo-realistic style helped bridged the fantastic to the tangible.
The story is pretty straightforward and like previously stated, pretty post-9/11. After catching a lower-level villain, Nick Fury, head of global peacekeeping task-force SHIELD, starts crunching numbers and realizes there's no fucking way these dudes who knock over banks for a few thousand bucks here and there - when they don't get stopped by heroes like Spider-man - can afford the tech they have. After tracing them back to a single supplier, they figure out how said supplier is getting his funding, and attribute it to State-sponsored terrorism. So Nick creates a team to do something about it, and that team is going to look pretty familiar.
Bendis started with working on what we'll call the ground-level heroes. He wasn't doing crazy cosmic shit, he cared a lot more about the less powerful, more flawed heroes. After reading Secret War, you can start spreading out a bit and dipping into these next books. Keep in mind, I don't think they're terribly important to the overall story Bendis and Co. were telling at Marvel, but they involve a lot of the important characters, and they're just pretty good books in their own right.
Daredevil
(Daredevil Vol. 2, 16 and up) Bendis took the baton from Kevin Smith and kept Daredevil Volume 2 (you can read the whole thing, but Bendis' run starts in earnest at issue 16, but the Kevin Smith stuff is good too) as a must-read book. When Daredevil's story wasn't being told by David Mack, it was being told by Alex Maleev, and until 2013's Marvel Now publishing initiative, the character never looked better. Bendis helped navigate the character through the millennium-hangover that a lot of books were feeling and gave him an old school noir-voice as the rest of the publishing line started looking towards the future.
Tell me again how comics aren't art?
For the most part, Daredevil was pretty self-contained until Civil War, but Matt Murdock's social life becomes kind of a sticking point for a bunch of other series, and it's worth reading about here just to stay up to date as you navigate other series. Also, this book just kinda fuckin' owns, ya know? I think Mack has more interesting contributions to this book creatively than later artists, but there's something so satisfying about seeing Maleev and Bendis working together over extended period of time, they really hit their stride early and develop a good report that's reflected in the book.
Alias AKA Jessica Jones
(Alias 1-28) One of my favorite books of all time, Alias, starring Jessica Jones is basically a series about perennial fuck up and former superhero Jessica Jones, as she navigates her way through New York's seedy superhero underbelly. She's a private eye who takes cases no one else will and you see a completely different side to the Marvel Universe than your'e used to, even with books like Daredevil on the stands. It's as different to the rest of the publishing line as the Netflix Jessica Jones show is to the movies. It's just heavier, it's darker, and it's somehow way more relatable. People talk... normally in that book. Bendis' contribution to comic book dialogue is essentially what Tarantino did to movie dialogue, and I think he did it best here.
The Pulse
(The Pulse 1-9, 11-14) Before it seemed like digital was going to eat print's lunch, it seemed like everyone was just getting dumber. It's not that people were reading the news online for free, it was that they weren't reading at all. And even though he hates vigilantes, the head of the Daily Bugle, J. Jonah Jameson himself decides that if he's going to slum with costumed heroes, he's going to slum it the best. He opens up a new superhero slanted imprint called The Pulse, and hires Jessica Jones to be its eyes and ears, along with Phil Urich (old school reporter at the DB) and everyone in their respective lives. It's a fun series that was unfortunately just a bit too short lived for my liking, but it's fun as hell and very much worth checking out.
2. Avengers Disassembled + Avengers Finale
(Avengers 500-504, Avengers Finale, see 'New Avengers' for Link) Any Marvel fan knows the words "And there came a day, a day unlike any other...". Bendis came in, and instead of giving a mighty day for heroes, and gave them the worst day they've ever had by a country mile. The way he broke them was super important, probably the most important, and while a whole bunch of people were pissed at the time, in hindsight, it's pretty clear why he did everything he did, and set up over a decade of stories to come. Obviously, if you want to understand every possible nuance, you can go back and read all of Avengers Vol. 3 (Which I really recommend, it's one of my favorite runs of all time), but all you really need to know is that this collection of heroes is Earth's Mightiest and they're not used to losing.
Disassembled was a publishing initiative that ran across multiple titles. So, as you see all the Avengers in this book have a shitty day, you can see repercussions of that shitty today in their own respective series. I can't really recommend any of them? I don't think they're bad, but I don't think they're particularly good either. That said, if you like this series or feel intrigued by the idea of heroes losing and want to better understand everyone's headspace before what happens next, don't let me be the one to stop you from reading them. Of them all, one is definitely more, um, worthy of your time than others....
Thor Disassembled
(Thor Vol. 2 80-85) Thor's Disassembled storyline is basically the Ragnarok storyline. It's big. It's loud. And it explains why the dude is off the board for the next couple of years. I'm not in love with any of the Avengers Disassembled Tie-Ins, but more than the others, this series is actually pretty important as far as Marvel continuity is concerned.
Iron Man
(Iron Man Vol. 4, 1-6) Not the Avengers Disassembled tie-in, but rather the Vol. 4 new series by Warren Ellis and Adi Granov. Yeah, that same Warren Ellis that I'm so head over heels in love with, he came onto Iron Man and blew shit up, making the biggest leap the character has made forward (technologically speaking) in years, and reframed Tony Stark as a futurist first, then a superhero in response to what the future needs, which at the time was a pretty refreshing take on the character considering he was just Secretary of State in a storyline that was a little meander-y.
Young Avengers
(Young Avengers 1-12) Hold on, hold on - I know this sounds stupid but it's not just the Muppet Baby equivalent to the Avengers so don't sweat it. Young Avengers picks up in the aftermath, in a world without Avengers and focuses on very young heroes who all have connections in some regard to someone from the previous Avengers team. What sounds like a cashgrab is legit one of the best 12 issues of a comic I've ever read. It was penned by Allan Heinberg, a Sex and the City and The OC alum who loved comics, and Jim Cheung, a super talented young artist. YA was a fun way to see what happens when a world doesn't have heroes and how there's always someone (or some-ones) good enough to rise up when no one else will. It also has one of the sweetest, most genuine relationships I've read in a comic, and it was between two young men. Also, one of the most badass Marvel characters, a young woman named Kate Bishop, debuts in this book as well.
3. New Avengers
(New Avengers 1-10) Why did Bendis break the Avengers if he was just going to bring them back a few months later? Because he was going to bring them back pretty freaking different. There were no big-hitters, people you call at the end times on this team, everyone was pretty human and pretty relatable as far as personalities were concerned. And like that terrible day that tore the team asunder before, a new day brought these heroes together by fate. It's pretty incredible that no one had ever put Spider-Man and Wolverine on an Avengers team before, that seems like a no brainer, but before long, Luke Cage and Spider-Woman became the hearts of the team, with a mystery surrounding one of the team members compelling you to keep turning pages.
Amazing Spider-Man
Mike Deodato Jr. is a gift
(Amazing Spider-Man 519-524) Spider-man is used to having shitty luck, but joining the New Avengers is kind of a turning point for him. The dude has historically been hated on by the press and city at large, so joining the newest incarnation of the Avengers is validating and to an extent it exonerates him in the public eye. But, that doesn't mean his life isn't more complicated, and his own series deals with that in some pretty fun ways.
Captain America
(Captain America Vol. 5 1-12) This is also a good time to start reading one of the greatest runs on any single character in Marvel history. Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting begin their year-spanning epic when they introduce new villain Alexander Lukin, who's just sold a cosmic cube to the Red Skull. This is part spy comic, part superhero opus, and like nine parts political commentary while being totally accessible and gorgeous. You know how Captain America; The Winter Soldier is one of the best Marvel movies? Yeah, Brubaker wrote it and Epting drew the shit out of out.
4. Astonishing X-Men
(Astonishing X-Men 1-24, Giant Size Astonishing X-Men 1) I think I've talked about Astonishing X-Men before... shit, yeah, I did - in my last post - but that should let you know how high regard I hold it in. Joss Whedon's name may not mean as much now as it used to, but back in 2004 he was considered one of the best acquisitions by Marvel. Immediately put to work with mindblowingly awesome artist John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men became the X-Men book. While the other main X-books were sort of treading water, riding on their legacy, Astonishing was where the defining stories of the X-Men were being told and having what was considered the canon lineup of the time.
The first story, Gifted, saw a mutant cure being made available, and saw the return of a classic character. Really, this series is just on there to familiarize yourself with the X-Family, this is a pretty low-investment series in that it didn't really tie in with the rest of Marvel's events and offers a pretty classical take on Marvel's best mutants, making it one of the easier books to jump into years later. Though this series wasn't affected by Marvel's bigger tentpole events, that's not to say the X-Men themselves weren't...
5. House of M
(House of M 1-8) Alright, so I don't want to give spoilers. I can't really talk about this event without spoiling the events of Avengers Disassembled, so I'll talk around it.
The X-Men and the New Avengers gather to finally deal with the fallout from Disassembled and they're quickly whisked into a re-written reality where normal humans are the minority and mutants are the majority. It's one of my personal favorite events because of how simple the premise is but how far the effects of it reach. It's written by Bendis and drawn masterfully by Olivier Coipel, a team you'll read about again in a later post.
The fallout from this event set the tone for Marvel's mutants for the next 8 years and led to some incredible, incredible stories.
Decimation
(Decimation: House of M - The Day After, and X-Men Vol. 2 177-181) It wouldn't be the end of a comic event without some things being fixed and other things blown to hell. While Astonishing X-Men is a continuity-lite book, if you want to see the direct result of House of M on the mutant population, I recommend checking out the adjective-less X-Men book. The Decimation publishing initiative permeated all the X-books, but this series in particular saw the most bombastic effects of House of M resolution.
Wolverine
(Wolverine Vol. 3 36-40) One consequence of House of M was Wolverine getting all of his memories back. He's a complicated character with a pretty horrific past, and him remembering is basically shit hitting the fan for the rest of the Marvel Universe.
X-Factor
(X-Factor Vol. 3 1-6)Thanks to House of M's conclusion, we got a bunch of new miniseries and a few new ongoings, but none were as beloved as X-Factor, which saw Peter David return to the fan-favorite series with a new volume. X-Factor was a mutant-run investigation agency that in the wake of House of M found itself more needed than ever. This title was great because it showed a completely different side of the mutant population. These characters didn't want to be superheroes, they just wanted to good and didn't bring any of the drama that the rest of the X-books did.