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[Johnny C]

Guys, I've been lookin' up some comics, sparked by my trip to Winnipeg in which sjbrot brought some old-school comic books with us. And I've realized that it is going to be incredibly tough for me to follow the newer storylines, continuity, etc.

Where should I start in DC and Marvel universe comics to get a grasp at where they are at now?

[logosmonkey]

Man thats a toughy. Especially since both the Marvel and DC universes are going through shake ups right now. For marvel your best bet is to get in on the Civil war story arc. It spans quite a few titles so you might want to stick with just the Civil War title not all its spin offs in other titles (i.e. The Cap' America stuff or the Spiderman stuff) I highly suggest you pick up the trade paperbacks for Astonishing Xmen... lets face it Joss Whedon is a god among men! We're are very fortunate that he has decided to pick up at least another years worth of writing duties on that book. It is so amazingly good. Now another book I would recommend would be Runaways. It's just a great little story.
DC wise pick up the 52 books... I think they are on week 14 or so right now. It is a major story arc across the DC universe and should catch you up to what is happening. On top of this there are going to be some new titles coming out that look promising. Notably the Martian Manhunter title, I believe that starts this month. Also Blue Beetle is supposed to be pretty good. I really like Wonder Woman #1 and I'm hoping that Green Lantern Corps. will turn out good; issue one was decent but not spectacular.
All in all you might have a pretty daunting task ahead of you at the moment because there is such a state of flux in both universes but it is also a great opportunity!

Good Luck!

Cheers,
Steve

[Dayuse]

Infinite Crisis?
Crap. I dunno. I'm not much of a comic reader.

[ElRodente]

hmm...

check out some elseworlds stuff for starters, like red son and in darkest night

i think 52 is up to week 9 today

for marvel, i reccomend runaways (18 issues of V1 available in trade, up to issue 17 of V2) astonishing x-men (up to issue 15), new avengers (issue 21 came out last week), and the civil war main issues (civil war 1 and 2 and civil war frontline 1 and 2) and NEXTWAAAAAVE (up to #6)


i also reccomend y the last man, but that's vertigo (owned by DC, but not DCU)



green lantern corps sounds good too, i've not read the first one yet, but recharge ( a mini series i think) is good, and introduces the characters

[TrueNeutral]

Just pick out a character you like and look things you don't get up on Wikipedia.

That or read the Ultimate Marvel universe. It's pretty young.

Personally, I'd go with reading Deadpool/Agent X/Cable & Deadpool, but that's just 'cause I love those fourth wall breaking sonsovubitches.

[tetrahedron]

if you like the old school, you could start by dl'ing torrents of beginning "amazing x-men" and spidey.  it's interesting to see the world of comics at its inception, you know?  that's what i did, and it's been enjoyable.  of course, buy the stuff if you like it, etc.

[Sean C]

Buy Wizard Magazine. Nine times out of ten, they recap everything that happened in both universes each month.

[logosmonkey]

Yeah I second the idea of catching up on continuities and retcons on wikipedia. They do a good job of summarizing everything that happens in the majority of larger books.
I really, really suggest the Civil war stuff from Marvel though. I haven't read one of those books I disliked yet. The whole story line is just awesome and  the battles that are coming up are going to be just outstanding.

[Jayfarer]

I got into comics recently.  I did it through two ways:

1) Wikipedia.  Name you don't know?  Reference you don't get?  Look it up, it helps.
2) Scott Tipton's Comics 101 articles.  He currently writes at www.comics101.com, but their archive is kind of glitchy.

I would also just look into buying the best/most popular trade paperbacks of the characters & titles you are interested in.  Like Batman?  Get Year One, Hush and Dark Knight Returns.  Like X-Men?  Get some things written by Grant Morrison and Joss Whedon.  Or at least read them quickly in the bookstore.

[Gryff]

Johnny C, trade paperbacks are your friend.

I will go ahead and reinforce a few of the suggestions of others:
Astonishing X-men
Runaways
Ultimate X-men/Ultimate Spiderman/The Ultimates

Those would be your best bet Marvel-wise, in my opinion. All of those series started not too long ago so they should be relatively easy to get into.

I can't recommend too many DC books because I don't tend to read a lot of their stuff. However, Batman: Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: The Long Halloween/Dark Victory, and The Killing Joke are all excellent trades to get if you're interested in the caped crusader.

After that I would recommend branching out to Vertigo stuff like Y: The Last Man, Fables, Preacher etc. Also Hellboy (Dark Horse comics) is awesome.

There ya go. Probably too much information, but I can't resist listing a bunch of my favourites!

[mrhemisphere]

If you're a Batman fan, check out Detective Comics. It's currently being written by former Batman: The Animated Series writer Paul Dini, and his whole run will be a series of done-in-one stories. The first issue just came out (#821) and it was a serious good read.

I'll also reinforce Astonishing X-Men, Runaways, and The Ultimates.

Also, two new creative teams just took over the other x-titles Uncanny X-Men and X-Men. They're fairly easy to jump into, just as long as you know the names of the main characters, but otherwise, are introduced for you.

Uncanny X-Men is starting a space opera arc, and Adjectiveless X-Men is...well, it's hard to say, but really good.

Also check out the recent Captain America trades (Winter Soldier) by Ed Brubaker, and the last five issues of Daredevil (also by Ed Brubaker). Some serious good stuff.

[Gryff]

Hey Johnny C, how did you get on? Find anything you like?

PS: She-Hulk is really awesome if you're into the funnier side of superhero comics.

[Gryff]

Johnny?

[Marcus]

Astonishing X-men probably isn't the easiest place to start since it was closely intertwined with Grant Morrison's New X-Men run... If you're starting off new (and You don't mind doing a bit of backtracking) I'd look up The Ultimate line to start and use Wikipedia. If you want DC, One Year Later is a good hopping on point.

If you want the whole story you can download comics on various different torrent sites (and a couple exclusively comic book torrent sites.)

[Johnny C]

Okay, I may or may not have been occupied for three weeks, but in that time I managed to do some research into my library's copies of trade paperbacks. They have Ultimate stuff, and I have looked into some of the Batman stuff. Vertigo and Dark Horse are paperbacks I've taken out before, and I tend to enjoy 'em.

Oh, and I read Batman: Year One (as well as the Sin City book about Marv). Frank Miller's weird corruption fetish and use of "sweet chunks" is offsetting but overall I enjoyed it; I'll hopefully read some of those other ones, Gryff.

Also, the Wikipedia comics section is stunning. It's just plain huge!

[Gridgm]

i don't abide by mainstream with the exception of ultiamtes at the moment

personally read the classics (invisibles, watchmen, sandman)

and then nearly anything from vertigo esp. powers: supergroup and fables

[alonelyargonaut]

take it from a guy who was a total noob to the comic universes merely 3 years ago (and is now a walking dictionary).  You need to start here:

For the DC Universe:

DC The New Frontier Volumes 1 and 2 by Darwyn Cooke
----these offer a great starting point, giving you a general (though not continuum exact) story of the Justice Leauge.

JLA Year One by Mark Waid
----This is a little bit more in the actual continuum.  It's a reboot of the JLA, but done well enough to be truely entertaining.

The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
----This brough comics from the happiness of the silver age into the dark and grim 80s and helped to forge the true art form that is comics.

The Justice Society Returns by David Goyer
----This is a great one covering the back story of the Justice Society (basically the golden age DCU)

For the Marvel Universe:

Marvels by Alex Ross
----This will give you exactly what you need to know about the Marvel Universe, painted beautifully and set in the original eras that the Marvel Universe was created in.

It's alot harder to really give a good starting point for the Marvel Universe, because there is so much, and the stories keep getting redone on new series (Uncanny, New, whatever XMen).  Basically for marvel just grab a book start reading and fill in the blanks as you go, winging it is the best bet.  That and read the Ultimate Universe.  It's still fairly young and te quality is amazing (especially with the Ultimates)

For later times when you start really getting into the Marvel Universe, or are feeling like overwhelming yourself and giving yourself a reason to kill hours if not days on Wikipedia, I would highly suggest checking out the Earth X cycle.  It covers everyone and everything and where they are going to be in lik 20 years.  Any character, place or concept ever mentioned in teh Marvel universe gets intertwined and answered.  Be warned Earth X is not for noobs.  it'll overwhelm you to the point of migranes.  But if you can survive it, and read it a couple of times it'll be well worth it.