Sunday, October 26, 2014

Letters from Dad: #19

(Once a month, I invite Sean to take over the blog and write a little note to our kids. I love that he is willing to leave little nuggets of wisdom for them to look back on when they are older! While many of the posts on this blog are written to share our lives with you, the reader, Sean's "Letters from Dad" series is truly written to our kids. You are welcome to peek in and see what he wants them to know!)

Dearest Children,

This is the moment that you have been waiting for (and Mommy and her readers have been dreading). Which comics you should read first?

First, let’s discuss authors.  Here are Daddy’s favorites, and the particular runs that he loves:

·         Peter David
o   Incredible Hulk
o   X-Factor
o   Supergirl
o   Young Justice
o   Spider-Man
o   Spider-Man 2099
·         Kurt Busiek
o   Avengers
o   Iron Man
o   Spider-Man
o   Thunderbolts
·          Roger Stern
o   Avengers
o   Spider-Man
o   Captain America
o   Iron Man
o   Incredible Hulk
·         Mark Gruenwald
o   Captain America
o   Hawkeye
·         Steve Engelhart
o   Captain America
o   Avengers
o   West Coast Avengers
·         Ed Brubaker
o   Captain America
o   Batman
o   X-Men
·         John Ostrander
o   Star Wars
o   Heroes for Hire
o   Quicksilver

So now you know what authors and their runs I like, so where should you start? If you are looking for comedy (and let’s face it, you’re my children), you’ll want to start with Peter David. Warning, his early run on Spider-Man was more tragic than comedic. I’d start with Young Justice (or as Impulse says “Young Just Us”). It’s geared at a younger audience with the teenage superheroes of Robin, the Secret, Superboy, Impulse, and Wondergirl.

So let’s see what next… you all like Spider-Man so I would then do Kurt Busiek’s Untold Tales of Spider-Man before moving over to Roger Stern’s Spider-Man.

Next, you also love Captain America, so I would just read Daddy’s entire collection.

Other complete runs you should try out are Incredible Hulk, read it up until Peter David leaves, then skip all of the issues until Peter David comes back. The Greg Pak run afterwards is completely solid and so is the Mark Waid run.

Avengers is another title you can’t go wrong with. West Coast Avengers/Avengers West Coast is completely solid. There are a couple fill-in issues but they aren’t smacked in the middle of the story so they don’t take away. It might help if you weave the Avengers and West Coast Avengers in together. Also, when you get to Busiek’s run (skip the heroes reborn action) you’ll want to mix in Iron Man, Thunderbolts, Quicksilver, and Heroes for Hire. All those books are rather enjoyable.
So here is the thing, the authors that I listed have long lengthy runs for their titles. They were dedicated to their characters. Comics aren’t made like that these days. Everything is all limited series, and they want to limit the input that the creators have on the titles. It seems that these days, Marvel plans on relaunching their titles every year, so there isn’t as much cohesiveness.

Nowadays, I get my comics from the library, which means that I’m limited to individual stories instead of runs. That’s okay because comics are mostly written that way nowadays. You just have to realize the shift in how comic books are written over the years.

Maybe you’ll want to read the comics that I love or maybe you won’t. If you do want to read them, we’ll read them and enjoy the stories together. The same way, we snuggle up to watch our cartoons.
I’m glad that we can enjoy life together!

Love,

Daddy

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