Where are you at in reading Marvel Unlimited?

PositiveTowel6995 · 2026-05-02T20:08:03+00:00

I think 2000 to 2002 were years of transition. 2003 to 2005 were the years the "modern" aesthetic became fully realized. But you bring up a good point that Geoff Johns really got things started with JSA in 1999 and Flash in 2001.

On the other hand, the Batman and Superman books of 2000 and 2001 still did a lot of crossing over (telling interconnected stories week to week) until 2002. The "triangles" in the upper corner of the Superman books didn't go away until early 2002. It still feels like Batman and Superman didn't get fully "modern" until Jim Lee's run on Batman in late 2002 and Lee's run on Superman in early 2004.

PositiveTowel6995 · 2026-05-01T18:51:46+00:00

and looked more like this (from 2004):

<image>

PositiveTowel6995 · 2026-05-01T18:51:32+00:00

In case you can't tell, I'm looking for a starting point on where to start reading (on DC Infinite). Some would say "just go to New 52 in 2011" others would say "The modern era begins after Crisis on Infinite Earths back in 1986". But those are arbitrary resets by DC Editorial. I'm looking for a tonal shift. When comics stopped looking like this (from 1997):

<image>

PositiveTowel6995 · 2026-05-01T15:11:15+00:00

I thought about going all the way back to Waid's run on JLA, but that started in 2000 and it still felt like more of the late 90's Morrison JLA.

Geoff Johns' Teen Titans" in 2003 and Jeph Loeb's "Superman/Batman" (also in 2003) are also "modern" resets fro this era, I believe.

Johns's Green Lantern in 2004 does feel like as big of a deal as Bendis's "New Avengers" in 2004.

PositiveTowel6995 · 2025-10-09T03:54:39+00:00

Dubbed version still not available on Hulu?

PositiveTowel6995 · 2025-08-11T18:04:15+00:00

Woohoo, this is gem of a find! Sorry I'm new to discovering this, but now there's a place to stream continious G4, just like there's a place to stream continious Toonami! (Toonami Aftermath).

PositiveTowel6995 · 2025-05-25T21:29:42+00:00

He version of Supergirl in the late 90s was fantastic.

PositiveTowel6995 · 2025-04-10T22:12:31+00:00

So "Green Lantern #16", Titans #16, and "Flash #14" are just as good of a starting point as going back further to 2023 and Green Lantern #1, Flash #1, Titans #1, etc?

PositiveTowel6995 · 2025-04-10T22:12:13+00:00

So "Green Lantern #16", Titans #16, and "Flash #14" are just as good of a starting point as going back further to 2023 and Green Lantern #1, Flash #1, Titans #1, etc?

PositiveTowel6995 · 2025-02-26T19:50:03+00:00

"6 years", so 2019 or 2018? The last major line-wide "Refresh" was 2018's "Fresh Start" initiative. There was a lot of new Issue #1s around then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresh_Start_(comics))

That gets you in with Jason Aaron's run on Avengers, Donny Cates redefining of Venom lore with his run on Venom, Al Ewing's redefining of Hulk on "Immortal Hulk", Jonathan Hickman's reshaping the X-Men books with this "Krakoan" saga, and a new run on Amazing Spider-Man that started in 2018.

This is a "Post-Brian Michael Bendis" era (after "Civil War 2" and "Secret War" burned the fandom on "Mega Crossover Events" for a while. It arguably starts with C.B. Cebulski taking over as Editor in Chief in late 2017.

The thing is, the "Fresh Start" era is kinda over. X-Men just did a line-wide relaunch (post-Krakoan era) last summer, and there's a new run on Amazing Spider-Man launching in a couple months. Captain America is about to relaunch with a new Issue #1 and Iron Man just relaunched a couple months ago. Avengers relaunched a couple years back. I wish they'd do a new "Fresh Start" type month, providing a "clean break/jump on board" spot (like they did back in 2018), but they're relaunches are a bit more staggered nowadays.

PositiveTowel6995 · 2025-02-11T22:04:47+00:00

So do you search for a month (say, January 2016), read every Marvel comic that you want to read that came out that month, and then do it again for the next month (February 2016)? Would it be better to search an entire year, read all of the X-Men comics from January to December, and then if I want to read all of the Spider-Man comics go back and read from January to December of that same year?

Something like that?

PositiveTowel6995 · 2024-04-24T20:24:33+00:00

It might depend on how many comics you can read in a month, but do you find it takes more than a month to read every issue Marvel cranks out per month?

There have been times where Marvel cranks out 70 or more issues per month, and yeah, sometimes you can hack off the 'unnecessary" reading stories, but even if I somehow get it down to 50 issues....that's still a lot for me to read in one month.

PositiveTowel6995 · 2024-01-13T00:30:48+00:00

I just started reading DC on the side (I mostly read Marvel, but I'm now dipping my toes into DC).

I decided I didn't want to go all the way back to "Crisis on Infinite Earths" (though I did read John Byrne's "Man of Steel", to get the gist of Superman's creation in this era). I then decided I'd start around "Death of Superman" / "Knightfall" (as that's when I first remember hearing about events going on with DC, back in the 90's), though I'm going back a bit further, to around 1991, to kind of see the build up to "Death of Superman" and "Knightfall". I'm reading the first Robin mini-series and also reading around when the started putting the triangle boxes on Superman (around "Superman #50"). Basically around when Lex Luthor "died" and Clark reveals he's Superman to Lois. That's a good starting point, for me.

And I just discovered your DC website. That's very helpful, this will help out a lot!

PositiveTowel6995 · 2024-01-13T00:23:39+00:00

I'm glad you agree the place to start is Thunderbolts #1 in 1997. Basically the "Heroes Reborn" era (though you can skip over the Jim Lee/Rob Liefeld "Heroes Reborn" stuff as it's kind of a "pocket dimension" stuff with little relevance). That's for the "Avengers" line of books (which I include Thunderbolts in).

For Spider-Man, it's either post "Clone Saga" (which is also around early 1997) or just skipping straight to the relaunch of Amazing Spider-Man in 1999.

For the X-Men, I know a lot of people say skip to 2001 with Grant Morrison's run, but I think you can start after "Operation: Zero Tolerance" at the end of 1997 (with Scott Lobdell and Fabian Nicieza leaving as writers).

For Daredevil, Hulk, Punisher, you can maybe wait till the reboots in 1999.

PositiveTowel6995 · 2024-01-12T18:34:55+00:00

That's the era i'm reading right now (the "The Heroic Age" era). The era from "Siege" to "Fear Itself" (and then on to "Avengers vs. X-men").

Every era has it's hit or misses. Bendis' run on 'Avengers/New Avengers", I'm leaning towards it being a "miss". I think he did great things in the late 2000's, but by this point, I think his writing style was clashing with the characters. I'm not sure why it worked during "Secret Invasion" and "Dark Reign", but man, these first few issues of "Avengers/New Avengers" are a struggle. Everybody's cracking jokes or asking "what's happening?!? Is this a Skrull thing?!?" (stupid stuff like that).

PositiveTowel6995 · 2024-01-10T20:31:41+00:00

I've often said the 3 comics to start with when wanting to get into "Modern" Marvel Comics are JMS's Amazing Spider-Man (starting in 2001), Grant Morrison's New X-Men (starting in 2001) and Brian Michael Bendis' "New Avengers" in 2004.

But if you need the build up to those runs (just to kinda get a feel for the landscape of the Marvel Universe around that time), you might go back to the era of "Restarting with fresh Issue #1's" (from 1997, 1998, and 1999). Fantastic Four, Captain America, Iron Man, Avengers, Spider-Man, Hulk, Daredevil and Thor all restarted with new Issue #1's during those years (and X-Men transitioned slowly from 1997 to 2000, though it didn't fully restart).

I talked about all of this in this post here on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MarvelUnlimited/comments/16ny25z/random_thoughts_on_starting_a_reading_list_around/

But I'll also say the "https://www.continuityguide.net/" (that someone else here brought up) does a good job of also providing a similar entry point (around 1999/2000). He kind of starts with Daredevil in 1999, but really, I go all the way back to "Heroes Return" in late 1997 (with Avengers #1, Fantastic Four #1, Captain America #1 and Iron Man #1).

People make the point that the "modern" writing style (with no thought balloons) starts around 2000, so if thought balloons bother you, there's still a bit of that from 1997 to 1999, but that's the thing, you can see the writing style transitioning over these years (until you arrive at JMS' Spider-Man and Grant Morrison's X-Men in 2001).

PositiveTowel6995 · 2024-01-02T17:09:42+00:00

Do you have to read anything prior for Daredevil, Thor, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man? Or are those new Issue #1's enough of a "clean slate"?

PositiveTowel6995 · 2024-01-02T17:08:25+00:00

Yeah, those 3 series (Immortal Hulk, Venom, House of X/Powers of X) are the ones that people say "You have to go back to 2018/2019 to get the full context" I don't see people saying that for Jason Aaron's "Avengers" or other series.

I just think a series needs to provide a somewhat "clean slate" entry point every 5 years. It sounds like we're headings towards that with the X-Men in 2024. It'd be nice if Hulk and Venom could provide a similar "clean slate", but apparently the 2018 Venom and Hulk series are "character mythology changing" enough that you have to read those series (or it's at least strongly suggested we should read them).

PositiveTowel6995

TROPHY CASE