Because comics are often seen as a difficult niche to break into this is a fairly common subject and one most comic book fans are ready and willing to offer advice on. It's a little more rare coming from the massive web presence of a legendary comedy franchise, but what surprised me the most was that Brian Michael Bendis's recommendations didn't include the phrase "anything written by Brian Michael Bendis," which has always been my go-to suggestion.
It comes from personal experience. When I was still a very green comic book fan of about thirteen, only obliquely aware that they even had writers, Bendis wrote several of my first books. I bought them at the local grocery store because there wasn't a comic book shop for miles. They were "Double Sized Flip Magazines," meaning that just by flipping over the X-Men I had a Fantastic Four on the other side. The two with the most impact on me were New Avengers/Captain America by Bendis and Ed Brubaker respectively and Ultimate Spider-Man/Ultimate Spider-Man by Bendis and Bendis respectively.
It was the third ever issue of New Avengers and on the cover there was a guy named Sentry who played almost no role in that issue whatsoever and I'm still not entirely confident I know what his whole deal is, but I think I like it. (By the way, "get used to not understanding things" is good advice for any new comic book reader.) Before the series started The Avengers had broken up and New Avengers #3 was more or less about Captain America getting the band back together. My favorite scenes were the inductions of Spider-Man, Daredevil, and Luke Cage. The first two because I recognized them from their movies. I liked Luke Cage for the opposite reason. I had no idea who he was but I immediately became fascinated by him, his wife Jessica Jones, their child, and their vaguely tragic backstory with Zebediah Killgrave. Bendis created Jones in his book Alias, which I very much plan to read one day, and is responsible for her marriage to Cage and all of her backstory. In retrospect I can see that those two pages were dense with his intimacy with these characters, which is probably what caught my attention. That and the scene earlier in the book when Luke Cage beat the snot out of the Purple Man.
 |
| Coming to Netflix in 2015. |
As much as I love New Avengers, Ultimate Spider-Man was targeted a little more towards my demographic at the time, what with Peter Parker being a relatable teenage protagonist or something like that. Some time later I got a mail subscription to USM. It was my first subscription and to this day it makes up a pretty significant chunk of my comics collection even thought I cancelled it after a few years. For a while I was part of a dying breed of young people who were excited about getting mail.
A lot has changed in the Marvel Universe since Bendis ended his run on New Avengers but he's still going strong on Ultimate Spider-Man. That's not to say that nothing has changed for Ultimate Peter Parker, unless you consider dying and being replaced by a black teenager named Miles Morales nothing, but Bendis has written every single issue of USM. Bendis's New Avengers is still a good read but I wouldn't recommend it for someone trying to get into the modern Marvel Universe. On the other hand, everything I know about Miles Morales indicates that Ultimate Spider-Man is still a great introduction to the Ultimate Universe (assuming Secret Wars doesn't ruin it but I'm ignoring that for now because it's one of those things I don't totally understand).
When Brian Michael Bendis finished with the Avenges he moved over to the X-Men. For the past few years he's been writing All New and Uncanny X-Men. You know those scene's in movies when someone says "It's a long story" then they sum everything up in a single sentence and proceed to say "Guess it wasn't that long"? That's kind of how Bendis's X-Men is. All New X-Men is about the original five X-Men who have been brought to the present and they can't get back. Uncanny X-Men is about Cyclops, whom everyone hates, teaching a new team of mutants with help from his ex-girlfriend Emma Frost, his former enemy Magneto, and Magik, who's backstory isn't very important in this context, thank God. Okay, that one is kind of a long story, but I still think either series would be a good introduction for new readers.
Bendis doesn't just write superhero stories for Marvel. He also writes Guardians of the Galaxy, which, if you've seen the movie you know, is more space adventure than superhero. It has more or less the same team as the movie, so it should be a pretty easy transition for people who enjoy the comedy stylings of Chris Pratt. Bendis started his career writing crime comics, which is how Powers came to be. It's a superhero noir that is technically published by Marvel but exists in its own universe. (which I haven't read but I hear is great. I like the guy but if I read everything he wrote I wouldn't have the time or resources to read anything else and I need my Ms. Marvel.)
So if a Late Night intern pointed a camera at me and asked what I would recommend for new comic book readers I would say "the, uh, it, the, Bu, Bendis. He, uh, he's good. I guess. I don't know" and what I would wish I had said is "Anything by Brian Michael Bendis. He's the best. Also, Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson."
No comments:
Post a Comment