DC and Marvel Comic book references?

Hey,

I haven't read a comic since I was maybe 7 or 8...

I was wondering what are some good issues to start with for:
-Classic Thor. Up to the 90s. Stories that features really cool mythology stuff/demons/epic battles etc?
-90s X-Men stories of great quality?
-Anything featuring the planet Sakarr
-Classic Avengers Storylines especially ones not set on Earth
-90s Superman (post resurrection and pre-1997 wedding)
-The ultimate Batman stories
-Great "The Question" stories from any era
-Great The Martian Manhunter stories from any era
-Great Dr. Fate stories from any period

 

The Question is fairly easy to answer. Start with the Denny O'Neil-written series that ran from 1987 through 1990. I believe it ran 36 issues.

The Question I Series by Dennis O'Neil

As for the Avengers, start with The Korvac Saga. Then move to Avengers Forever by Kurt Busiek.

https://www.amazon.com/Avengers-Korvac-Marvel-Premiere-Classic/dp/0785144706

https://www.amazon.com/Avengers-Forever-Kurt-Busiek/dp/0785137521

 

On The Question, there's also a 37th issue that was released in conjunction with The Blackest Night event (when they brought back some dead series for one issue). If I remember correctly it featured the same creative from the early The Question series. Although it features the new Question (Renee Montoya) it also features a version of the original Question.

For The Martian Manhunter, I'd recommend the series beginning in 1998. It delves into J'Onn's history (such as establishing the relationship between the Green Martians and the Red Saturnians) and features some great stories. The Renegades of Mars is one story that I really enjoyed.

 

Thor - you should check out the Walt Simonson run, it's pretty well regarded as a classic.

Sakaar - I think this will just be the Planet Hulk story. It's a wonderful read, and you can add World War Hulk that follows it. But be aware that the Sakaar in the comics is quite different from that in the Thor film.

 

90's X-Men stories

I get the obvious one is the Age of Apocalypse storyline, which is great if you like the 'alternative dimension' type thing. I also enjoyed the Legion Quest and Onslaught crossovers at the time but don't know how they stand up now.

Peter David did a great run on X-Factor.

Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachalo's run on Generation X I really liked

Jose Ladronn drew Cable form issue 48 to 70 and that is very good, very Kirby like.

 

You may want to check this list out:

Top 100 Comic Book Storylines of All-Time Master List

Let me also say that the current Tom King run on Batman is stellar.

 

Peter David is so underrated. His 2000's run on X-Factor is also excellent.

 

Love Ed Brubaker's take on Captain America leading up to the first Civil War (which he didn't write btw) and it was also he, who resurrected Bucky as Winter Soldier too. Brilliant run especially that Issue #25 that shook the comic world at the time. And I must check out his Books of Doom origin of Doctor Doom run that came out about 10 years ago.

 

He also did some excellent work on The Incredible Hulk. One of good things he introduced was how someone without invulnerability could land after a miles-long jump and now have their legs shatter. His answer: The Hulk's legs do shatter when he lands but they heal instantly. He defined The Hulk as being like cancer as in an uncontrolled growth of cells, so any damage you do to him heals instantly. He illustrated this by having Wolverine cut out The Hulk's heart. Wolverine thinks The Hulk is dead but gets a shock when The Hulk stands up and is growing a new heart.

I also enjoyed his work on Supergirl. He took her in a new direction and did some excellent stories in the early issue. Among my favorites is when Supergirl communcates with Chemo [who is basically a walking vat of chemicals], who'd always been portrayed as an almost-mindless creature, and discovers that he has developed an intelligence. Another great story is (his last one) "Many Happy Returns" where he brings back the Pre-Crisis Supergirl. His writing has made his version of her my favorite of all versions.

 

+1... love W. Simonson. Issues #337-382.

 

I absolutely love his Hulk run, especially with Gary Frank art. I also really liked his Aquaman run. He is a writer I would follow whatever he was writing.

 

Would help to know WHEN you were 7 or 8. For me that would be 1960/61!

After a lifetime of reading them,I stopped reading comics in the early 90's. The book that made me take notice, and effectively get back into them was Batman: Hush. Lotta people love it, lotta people hate it. I still think it's a great run. BTW, when DC introduced the 'NU52' I stopped collecting completely and now scratch the itch via my local library!

 

I was so turned off by the New 52 that I almost dropped out of reading. Then, I heard about Rebirth and decided to give DC one final chance...

 

I've been reading a lot of Rebirth and I have to say New 52 was much, much better. I mean, there's not even a Swamp Thing book!

 

I tried reading some of the New 52 but found some of the issues a turn off. As an example, they made the New 52 Superman an unlikable character, someone different from the Pre-Flashpoint Superman. With the changes they made in the DC Continuity (some series rebooted, some series didn't and some partially rebooted), it made for such a mess that I just couldn't get into it.

I'm hoping that when Doomsday Clock is over we will finally have a clear, understandable, and logical DC Continuity for the first time in decades (going back as far as Crisis On Infinite Earths). For me, it is DC Comics' final chance.

 

I do like that they killed off the New 52 Superman and restored the previous one. Bringing back Wally West though? Completely unnecessary. Such an annoying character—and now there are 2 of them! The current Flash/Titans/Teen Titans runs are unreadable.

 

I haven't followed Peter David's work on X-Factor (is there a collection of it?), but I love his work on Hulk and Spider-man 2099.

I especially loved his grey Hulk, which sometimes get dismissed as Joe Fix-it. The grey Hulk was not always Joe Fix-it, and the pre-Vegas storyline was one of the best. (Vegas was definitely down a notch, though still enjoyable.) David says his strength was in writing dialogue and he got handed, of all things, The Hulk. So he made the character physically weaker but more intelligent--not Banner intelligent but, rather, crafty and cunning. Especially great is the weaker Hulk vs stronger Thing fight. The Hulk realized he could no longer take Grimm by punching him silly so he had to outsmart him.

 

Someone else might know the issue numbers but I remember two Walt Simonson Thor's where he is a frog. They were a lot of fun. I can't imagine they'd be expensive. I think the cover price then was 60-65 cents.


I liked the Avengers story from 185-187 about Quicksilver & The Scarlet Witch's origins. John Byrne art. 40 cents. His run from 181-191 written by David Michelinie is one of the first 'super' series I got into.

 

I disagree that Wally West is annoying, he's my second favorite Flash (see below). I liked that they didn't just make him The Flash by putting on Barry's uniform. He slowly grew into the role, but he didn't truly become The Flash until he defeated The Reverse Flash (Eobard Thawn) in "The Return Of Barry Allen" by realizing that the one thing that he was more afraid of than taking Barry's place was letting Thawn do it.

As far as my favorite Flash, it is Walter West (I call him The Dark Flash because while his uniform is red it is such a dark red that it looks black except when light is shining directly on it). He's from an alternate timeline where his wife was killed by Kobra. Due to this, Walter became someone who is no-nonsense. When he fight a villain, he puts them down for good (in his first fight with the Rogues, he put Captain Boomerang in a head-to-toe body cast) and he doesn't have a problem with killing.

 

I've given up on DC with all these resets and relaunches, I just can't keep up. Marvel is just as bad. It just seems like a chance to issue lots of new issue 1's to boost sales. It all seems so cynical.

 

I basically feel the same way about DC, but I'm giving they one final chance since it looks like Rebirth and Doomsday Clock might finally fix things. Geoff Johns is writing Doomsday Clock and he has proven that he can take the mistakes of the past and work them so that it looks like they weren't mistakes after all.

He did this with Green Lantern Rebirth, redefining Parallax as the entity of fear, giving a logical reason that Green Lantern Rings were ineffective against yellow, explaining why The Spectre chose Hal Jordan to be his host, and why Parallax targeted Jordan.

For me, things fell apart with One Year Later. Due to that, I decided to just read 52 (the weekly miniseries that took place between the end of Infinite Crisis and the One Year Later issues), and hold off until it was over before reading anything else since I didn't want to have the One Year Later issues spoiled. Unfortunately, it caused me to fall behind and I've never been able to catch up.

 

I have the 2006 Supergirl up to #8 and nothing else from that time, so the whole One Year Later thing is a bit of a mystery, I just accept things get weird with #6. Someone might like to try the 2006 Supergirl #0, #1-5, at least she isn't the blob person (or ProtyIII as I called 'Mae').

 

The whole 'one year later' thing seemed like ANOTHER failed reboot idea BUT....one good story came out of it; Superman in Action Comics did a series called 'Up, Up, and Away' that I actually thought was quite good. Pretty sure I have it in a longbox somewhere! Mind you, this came out when a good Superman tale was a true rarity. It's always striking to me how a company can own the most well known comic book character of all time and yet has so consistently screwed the pooch when it comes to him.

 

This is the basics of One Year Later:

• At the end of Infinite Crisis just about every DC title did a 1-year leap where one year has passed between one issue and the next. Two examples:
  
  • In Green Arrow, Oliver Queen is manipulated to a location where he can watch all of Star City on fire and the issue ends with that. The next issue, which takes place 1 year later, he has been elected Major of Star City.
  • In Catwoman, the issue ends with Selina on a roof, covered in blood after killing someone. The next issue, which takes place 1 year later, she is giving birth to her daughter.
• At first, we were told little about the missing year other than there is no Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.
• What occurred during the missing year was covered in the weekly miniseries 52, a real-time series (each issue covers one week and is in time with our world).

As far as Supergirl goes, when she was the star of the Peter David written Supergirl series, they had merged her with a dying young woman named Linda Danvers and they basically became one person (now, she could only shape shift between Supergirl and Linda). The only outward change with Linda is that now she had blue eyes instead of brown. Excellent series that is well worth reading, the advertising tag line was: They told her to get a life...they just didn't say whose...

 

I'd figured it out pretty much then, plus with whatever was in the editorial pages and footnotes. I have the Supergirl & Team Luthor (Year Without Superman) Special plus the four issue June Brigman mini series that followed, and then the first nine of the Pete David regular series where 'Mae/Matrix' and Linda Danvers are merged which followed that. It seems that with the 2005/6 issues they dropped all that though.

Someone gave me a single Ms. Marvel: Secret Invasion issue and it's like she is Marvel's Supergirl (and maybe they are both inspired by Mary marvel from the '40s anyway), although now there is a Middle-Eastern super stretcher girl using the name, and Carol Danvers is Captain Marvel. If I'm following it straight anyway (from mostly the outside of the comic shop looking in and with just one comic). The art for the 2000s Supergirl and Carol Danvers Ms. Marvel are extremely good, but the stories I don't think are as good. I guess I'd rate the '70s Chris Claremont Ms. Marvel highest, he also did a great Spider-Woman and X-Men. Peter David reminds me of Steve Gerber for some reason.