The panels where Moon Girl is working on a Lego thing for school (yes it was a blatant advertisement) and talked about how much she loved herself despite being so abrasive and standoffish. It resonated with me, as someone who's often described similarly. It really informs the character and what her strengths are The opposite is when the birds of prey bullied batman, I thought he was an annoying loser for years. I still do but he's MY annoying loser ❤️
The desperation of Jason Todd's revival. He will always be my favorite. A parental figure that failed and the depression and hurt that comes from that.. it did something for me. He was angry and violent, so I didn't have to be.
Captain UK (Linda McQuillan) -- There's a sequence in The Crooked World/Jasper's Warp where she's being forced to strip, revealing her superhero uniform under her clothes, and she's just so terrified -- It's a reversal of what the super suit is meant to do, fill someone with power and courage. That, and earlier in the same story, she crushes a pipe in one hand out of fear, showing how strong she really is but how powerless and terrified she really feels. Makes the final catharsis of her finding her courage in the most violent manner possible against the invincible Fury so much more satisfying. Alan Moore nailed it.
We NEED a video talking about Valeria! Byrne gave us a POWERFUL story about Sue losing her baby in childbirth and having to just DEAL with that, something that never happened in superhero stories before! There was no "fixing" it with sci fi nonsense, it was just a fact of life, as many readers had to deal with...until Waid (building on something Claremont established) did just that. The addition of Valeria to the family has turned out to be a lasting and popular one, that will almost certainly make it into the next tv or movie adaptation...but does it undercut the power and meaning of the original story? I've never heard Byrne's comments on it, but I can't imagine he's pleased to have been retconned so thoroughly... (Although I must admit, I love the image of the Richard's daughter just idly running away to "Uncle Doom" whenever she gets mad or just bored, lounging around his castle...Doom is just petty enough to gloat about it, too!)
Valeria: Uncle Vic, I can't log in to my Steam account... Dr. Doom: (To shadowy figures on multiple screens.) A moment, ladies and gentlemen. (To Val) Steam is not an approved website in Latveria. Val: What? Why? It's just a game aggregator. DD: Yes, well, when Valve learns to count to three, I might consider adding them back in. (To screens.) As I was saying, you have twenty-four hours to...
@@CasualNotice You think Doom wouldn't have the means to make an exception for his favorite child? Are you crazy? Of course Val could access Steam in Latveria with Doom's very own VPN!
@@louisvictor3473 Or would doom be using it for more nefarious reasons and doesn't want to warp the child's mind with the gamb..i mean 'surprise mechanics' of his latest game?
While not in childbirth, the Aquababy had been killed years before Sue's miscarriage, the former which led to one of Mera's most defining storylines about her grief and trauma. Just a year after Sue's miscarriage, Wanda Maximoff would lose her own infant twin boys in the storyline that primarily inspired Wandavision, and in the 90s, Mary Jane was poisoned and forced to suffer a miscarriage too, so I wouldn't say undoing Baby Valeria's death took away a very "unique" plot development in comics as there was a time where male writers thought the most interesting way to give some complexity to a female character was to have her lose her very young children.
I loved to hear you talking about Sue's and Reed's relationship! I hate when there's some runs who turn their marriage into some comic relief deal or try to simplify it- their marriage is so complicated and they somehow make it work while balancing their careers, not limited to their superhero team, either! I've lost count of how some writers just summ it up to "Reed just doesn't get human emotions! See what poor Sue has to deal with?"
Unfortunately, that's the short hand most media are familiar with. I'm not one of those "men's rights" or "hollywood elites" whackos, but I am honestly cringing to think how R&S might be depicted in the movies going forward. I really do hope we get a take like these panels show, just two decent people who genuinely love, respect and forgive one another, even when they make mistakes or lash out. We should all be so lucky...
I forgot to mention it earlier, but, after getting into them with Byrne's run, THE first comic collection I convinced my parents to buy was one that collected the first dozen issues of the original run, along with some later issues such as the first appearance of the Inhumans and Galactus! Great stuff! Anyway, it's so interesting to hear from folks who were there at the start of it all! Did you read most of the other heroes as they debuted after? When did you learn just how much that issue you had probably lost years ago was worth now and how do you feel about having your old comics thrown out? LOL
The panel that made me fall in love with a character was one of Vision where he holding Jessica Jones’ daughter and says “Babies like it when I make pretty lights on my forehead, that’s a trick you learn as an overworked father that doesn’t sleep” Then Jessica goes “oh I had no idea you had children” And it’s just a panel of Vision turned around, phasing through the ceiling and saying “I didn’t”
My read on Reed is simply that he is so smart that he is almost incomprehensible. To me, the classic Reed moment is the one where he effectively lobotomizes Franklin to keep him from potentially killing everyone. It seems like a gross overreaction, and it is effectively sacrificing his family (with a device he had already ready), but he was too smart to let his emotions stop him. His lack of emotional intelligence in the face of his vast genius is a wonderful part of his character (and a great way to differentiate him from Tony Stark or even Lex Luthor. Tony and Lex use science to get them things they want. Reed uses it to find out and interact with whatever is objectively true: what anyone wants is secondary to the reality of the universe in his mind. Also importantly, he understands that others cannot 'get' him and he accepts that without manipulating it.
The Reed/Sue relationship is one of my favourite in comics because of how real they feel. One of the big moments for me was that issue where everyone has a bunch of important stuff going on but Reed gets a call rom a man with cancer he'd met and promised to be with in his final moments. In other stories I would have expected this to start a big blow up but Sue vents a bit then asks reed if what he needed to do was that important. When he answers they hug it out, presumably talk things through and are back to normal the next day. It feels like a real, mature love grown from mutual understanding and time.
In my early comic-reading days, I'd just read whatever was in front of me. None of them were jumping-on points. And I really liked the feeling of discovery that came from not knowing the full background. Sometimes it took years to read earlier stories. I was reading Captain Britain just after the Jaspers Warp story and Moore's run had taken on an almost mythic quality by the time I got to finally read it. Reading comics doesn't have to be all neat and tidy.
More people need to read Moore's Captain Britain -- It's a masterclass in balancing the fun weirdness of comics with well-constructed characters and story. Plus it's basically the origin of the greater Marvel Omniverse and, by that token, the MCU.
man I'm the exact opposite, I love reading things from start to finish, its one of the reason's I love manga so much, so reading something out of order and inconsistently not from chapter 1 or volume 1 just seems wrong, since it's like your skipping over alot of the story to get to the good part.
I was the same way until I read the first issue of Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America. After that, I began actually paying attention to writers I liked, making sure I followed storyline from beginning to end, and just getting really invested into the universe.
I think necessity plays a role. Back in the day it could actually be quite difficult to follow a title through from issue to issue, especially outside of America. So if you liked superhero comics you just grabbed what you could, when you could. a And if you managed to collect a full extended story arc, that was an achievement. It's much easier to start at A beginning now, if not THE beginning, by picking a run a going from there. Especially with digital comic libraries. I'm unlikely to pick up a title mid-run now, simply because I don't have to anymore. But I also agree that US comics could learn a lot from manga when it comes to availability, distribution, and affordability.
Similar experience. I started when DC had those giant 100 Pages for 60 cents comics. New story first and the rest were reprints. Really helped fill in my knowledge going forward. DC also.did one and done stories which was awesome. Marvel left me stuck often with cliffhangers before I understood how they were published. Daredevil had Man-Thing sicced on him in 1973 by Death Stalker and it took until fairly recently when Marvel Universe finally added the next issue.
Other media really does help with this. If someone who doesn't read comics watches a movie, or a cartoon, or stumbles into our little fandom here on youtube then they can see characters that catch their eye and at least know where to start looking
James Robinson is such an underrated writer! It's great writing and art, no matter where you come into a story, that works for me. Also, when I started reading comics, the idea that every story could be someone's first was a major factor in the storytelling. It was a big deal if there was a 3 part story, and (this is before comicbook stores) it was a problem if I'd be able to get all 3 parts, ever! You kids today have it so easy, LOL!!
I think his rating is exactly what it should be - he's highly respected and regarded. He has survived that terrible story that nearly every writer puts out eventually and his was Cry For Justice.
Reed and Sue relationship is very interesting and complicated, Reed having a hard time with human emotions and Sue listening to Namor play Mr. Steal Your Girl at her every day and night
I don't remember a particular jumping on point for any particular title, but one early FF memory that helped to hook me on classic Marvel was the cover to FF#92, "Ben Grimm, Killer!" It was an instantly compelling Kirby cover, and unlike anything I had seen in comics at the time. My dad used to come home with Marvel books and it was exposure to those Lee/Kirby/Ditko silver age books that made me a regular comics reader. And the crazy storylines of Marvel in the mid-70s sealed the deal. I think it was a combination of bold stories, great art, and Stan's way of capturing character through dialog that kept me coming back.
I love the "don't be mean" line so so much. In a meta format of the trade thing it establishes that what Sue said wasn't a quip. I think if it was a new scene after that line it would've been seen as a zinger. But the acknowledgment made it feel so much more like a real conversation, and makes the rest of this whole interaction so much stronger. And as a character moment its so nice for all the reasons you said.
Standing by the cartoon series too lol Sucks that it didn't continue past Season 1. Literally one of, if not the best representations of the FF **on screen**. Especially Sue, really liked her portrayal in the show :3
....a few things; first each comic is potentially someones first which is why they should at the least aim for the fence. Second, the F.F. have been dealt a shaky hand because of what has come before, it is DIFFICULT to surpass Artistic benchmarks and Nostalgia. Third-ly, that malice stuff was Reed pushing Sue pass his general insensitivity-character flaw to break the "spell" of the Hate Monger,.....and it worked.(Byrne's run was really good....great memories....nostalgia.) A SUPERIOR look into the motivations of a "comics" Lover. Thank you for sharing dear Sister, PEACE and God bless.
You are a great, comic librarian. And a great TH-cam Therapist. I've been reading comics for around 50 years. You bring out great emotions in me. That I haven't experienced in quite a long time. Well done!
The thing that got me into comics was the MCU. But I think actually that the thing that made me fall in love with comics was from Tom King's Batman run. I picked up a trade of I Am Suicide and the part with Batman's letter to Catwoman just...really hit me. It got me into the run, which I still love, and I think it was a big part of making me start collecting comics week to week.
Sasha, I really appreciated what you said here. Marriage can be very taxing to both partners as they each have to live with their respective weaknesses as well as their strengths. I never noticed that Sue is one of the most powerful FF members because she does truly love read, even though his priorities are out of whack, he does try to help the woman that he truly loves, and he knows he's lucky to have her.
A not-so-strange jumping on point for the X-men for me was back when Marvel was reprinting the first few issues of X-men in a new comic called Amazing Adventures. Having seen where the X-men were originally, this gave me the confidence to start buying the then-new issues of X-men, near the beginning of the Dark Phoenix saga. I'm glad I didn't miss out on those comics.
This was my jumping on point for the X-Men as well. I didn’t realize/understand the reprint nature of it, so when I fell upon X-Men #138 with the funeral for Jean Grey I was devastated (and hooked at the same time)
I knew the FF from the cartoons and some bits from Spider-Man & His Amazing friends. But my serious FF jumping on point to the comic was way back in Byrne’s run, issue 244, “Beginnings and Endings”. It was the issue where Reed saves a weakened Galactus and Frankie Raye become his new herald as Nova. The panels that stuck with me most were Nova stating “And I’m free!” before flying up into the sky towards space and not even noticing as Johnny chased after her before burning out at the edge of atmosphere while she obliviously continued on. I thought that was really cold of her but she had gained a freedom that I have always coveted, so I understood. With the next issue, “Childhood’s End”, I was hooked, especially with the revelation of why Reed’s attempts to cure Ben always failed. I had recognized Byrne’s art from having read an X-Men comic (Wolverine alone in the Hellfire Club during the Dark Phoenix saga) when I was younger (gotten from a comic spinning rack at a pharmacy) but never knew he could write as well. From there no dove in and with the emergence of dedicated comic book stores picked up his run there and on the X-Men and Alpha Flight and… Byrne on the FF, Simonson on Thor, Claremont on X-Men, and Roger Stern on the Avengers and Doctor Strange. To me that will always be the true Golden Age of Marvel Comics.
I remembered when I picked out my first avengers comic and it was Civil War. Specifically an issue where Ultron/ Hank Pym kidnapped the avengers in this bizarre family dinner to get them to stop fighting. The whole thing was so creepy but heart wrenching. There was this part where was psychoanalising the whole team and bringing up their horrible traumas and it ended with Tony just saying “You want to know what happened to us? The truth the avengers died the day you slapped Janet” By that point all I knew about the avengers was from the MCU and the cartoon, cannot even explain how much it shook me. Literally gasped out loud.
I honestly jumped on the FF during the Carlos Pacheco (May he rest in peace) run before Waid's with Heroes Return, I watched the 90s FF series and wanted to get into it. I remember it because the Baxter Building wasn't there and they literally had their base on a Pier. I think it was Pier 4. I miss the Pier! It was the Diablo issue and honestly it not only hooked me on the FF, but also loving Diablo as a villain.
It’s can be a problematic trope to assume a genius is on the spectrum but I think Reed could be seen that way. He loves his family and is driven by his work but it’s clear he doesn’t “get people” and has a hard time reading them. The reason he and Sue work is because she understands that and he, for his part, can read her better then he can most other people. It’s a constant struggle, what marriage isn’t, but it’s heartwarming to know they always come out together and in love. It’s the whole F4 family dynamic. They are a family. Families fight. Being in a family is hard but at the end of the day they are still family.
When I first got Marvel Unlimited one of the characters I wanted to get into but didn't know where to start was Captain Marvel so I decided why not start from the beginning in 1977 and I absolutely enjoyed it from the beginning but what stood out to me was during #9 Deathbird's first debut, she rescues two kids out of a burning building they're fine and girl is fine mentally but the boy isn't and he starts to hold in his tears but Carol conforts him and tells him he's allowed to be scared and cry. It really stood out to me because boys are often told they need to man up and be a baby even now and this felt like a such strong stance since it was out in the late 70s. This is Carol to me now, someone who is mighty strong but will always do the little things like confort a child before moving on to the next thing as well as always being ahead of her times with her strong sense of feminist and her many views. I love this run but I've found out not many people like it espically before Chris Claremont went onto it but this and many other parts of this run made really love and appreciate Carol and see her in a new light after finding her movie and character average at best.
Oh lord... "Marvel NOW!"... When you take the event punchline of "nothing will ever be the same again!" and make it a whole period of time... To be fair, while that idea (not reverting to the status quo immediately after an event) is exactly what I want in comics, but man did they bungle the execution. My FF jump on was through Panini reprints while visiting my gran in hospital -- same with most of my comics, really! The FF were in the weirdness of the Claremont run (Reed VS the super apes, Sue VS the iconoclast), The Avengers were going into the Forever event, and Spidey was having a full on Identity Crisis! Oh, and the X-Men were in Zero Tolerance... Joseph's first appearance was my first issue, lol.
Susan Storm Richards is the perfect example of a character’s depiction evolving to match the times. Originally, she was the girlfriend/sister and nearly an afterthought of the team dynamic. (Invisibility? Force fields? Bo-ring!) from that, she became a wife, a vital member of the team, and, arguably, the most powerful Member of the Fantastic Four. And she’s become her own woman with her own drives. That family is still the greatest of those drives is admirable. And all of this is an example of what Marvel does best; a focus on the ‘human’ over the ‘super.’ When done right, you get tremendously real and relatable person and not just a pretty bit of art on a page. You rejoice when they succeed and feel sadness when they fail. It’s hard to believe your next door neighbor is Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman, but you probably wouldn’t be surprised if the Invisible Woman knocked on your door to borrow a cup of sugar.
ngl, I still like superman, wonder woman and flash tho. Sure superman isn't relatable, but that's okay because you have clark kent to balance out supes perfection with a perfectly average, good man. Equally flash is insanely op and fast, yet the quirky, always late but charming barry allen grounds him and wally's empathy balancing out his goofiness.
Loved this story about your FF starting point. My starting point on super hero comics was JLA/Avengers 3, the one comic where all the DC and Marvel canon was smashed together and the heroes had their memories confused. I simply loved it, the scale, the emotional beats, this notion that there was a gigantic "lore" and, really, history of this world and character's saga that I was fascinated about learning piece by piece (had no functional internet back then) in editors notes on then current comics or special almanacs about all the 70+ history I missed out, and even today I'm far from knowing and it all (one reason I love silver and bronze age deep dives haha) and that's part of the fun. I'll never get behind the "simplify/retcon/reboot or perish" mentality in comics editing to get new readers. I'm just not sure there are so many people that are taken aback by chronology instead of fascinated by it.
Well said. One of my favorite jumping on moments was Alpha Flight #72. I came across a beat up copy in a bargain bin as a kid. The story was told through Madison Jeffries and opens up with him sitting desolate, on his destroyed Box armor. Telling the story of how they utterly defeated. That opening and the moment where Heather Hudson with no Vindicator suit stares down Llan the Sorcerer. Between Hudnall's writing and Taloc's lines, I was hooked. They haven't been given the proper respect in years, but Alpha Flight will always be one of, if not my #1, favorite super hero team. I think part of what I loved was since they aren't Marvel's top tier team, more chances could be taken with them in their first series.
What I look for from a jumping on point is the beginning of a arc or saga, essentially starting from chapter 1 of that story, and then moving onto the next. I really like to keep things neat and tidy when it comes to reading order and such.
Every comic could be someone's first. That is so true. The Tin Tin Comics taught me how to read. Not the traditional superhero comic, but I loved the colors and the art.
Oh wow, how I got into the FF...I think it started with watching the old cartoon (you know, the one that used actual Kirby art?) on sat mornings, then picking up the odd comic from the grocery store...But it picked up in earnest with John Byrne's run! That artwork was like nothing I'd ever seen, and for the first time, made me check the credits to see who was responsible for this awesomeness...and it blew my kiddie mind that he was also the writer! That was the first time it occurred to me that one could make a living telling stories, and inspired me in my life's work! Needless to say, I've been a huge FF fan ever since, esp during the Simonson and Waid eras (shout out to the Claremont era, which gave us the first Valeria, sort of, and Grant Morrison's "1-2-3-4" miniseries, which must be read to be believed, and YES, that later cartoon WAS Fire!), and I was one of the few who thought the two movies *nailed* the essence of the FF, tho the story wasn't much and they got Doom just as wrong as the family was right (I would love to see what 80s Spielberg could have done with them; or the creator of the Incredibles, Brad Bird, today)! Anyway, that's my story with the FF (and I'm still kicking myself for failing to grab that hardcover collection of JBs run from my FLCS when I had the chance...); TLDR, the FF and I go WAY back! EDIT: Thanks for suggesting this run, which I was unaware of! Honestly, I've never even SEEN the red costumes before now, this is all new to me! Hopefully, I'll be able to get into it soon...
Great moment! When I started reading properly my first pick was Batman Hush Part 10 of 12. I just thought the art looked cool. But the narration and world hooked me in. I read that issue over and over and found new things in every line while guessing what the the context was. This was before I could use the internet. I started finding other issues and read the whole story out of order and loved it.
I loved this video. I love how passionate but also logical you are about comics. So my jumping on point for the X-men was the first Excalibur series. It cemented my love of Alan Davis' art. To this day I still pick up anything he draws. Also it introduced me to Nightcrawler, my all time favorite comic book character. I came in near the beginning of the run but not at #1, so it was my first foray into back issue hunting.
I jumped into the Fantastic Four in the late 1970s because I had a cousin who read them, so I read one of them when I was over his house. It was absolutely the worst sort of issue to start with because it must have been the 2nd or 3rd part of an ongoing story. I remember that it had Tigra, Thundra, the Impossible Man, a duplicate/evil Reed, and all the typical 70's FF shenanigans that made these guys Marvel's First Family at the time. Like you yourself, I had known of them from their cartoon so I had the basic idea of who they were, but that story was just off-the-walls fun, complicated and zany. It got me hooked, and I read both that and the Thing's 2-in-1 team-up book religiously for the next two decades.
For me, one of the strangest jumping-on points was the two-issue story-arc in Adventure Comics #350 and 351, which were reprinted together in a comic I read as a kid. This is a Legion of Super-Heroes story. I had some knowledge of the Legion, but mostly as "Superboy and some other people that I don't know very well". But this story made me a Legion fan for life (well, for as long as that version of the Legion existed anyway). This is crazy story that starts with Superboy and Supergirl getting kicked out of the Legion. Along the way, the story involves almost everyone and everything, including the Legion of Substitute Heroes and the Legion of Super-Pets, ending with a new status quo for a variety of characters (mostly undoing some changes that had happened to them). I had never met most of the characters in this story before, but this crazy mish-mash somehow worked. It thrilled and excited me to see how huge and interesting the world of the Legion of Super-Heroes really was.
I first saw the FF in the 90s cartoon and really liked them, particularly Johnny. Fast forward a lot of years and I finally got to picking up an FF book. It was their run in the Ultimate universe. I’m pretty sure this was after Ultimatum had already wrapped so I just binged the whole thing. I really like it because it felt like a true jumping on point for me (even though I was pretty familiar with the team from other mediums)
I think the Hickman run had more emotional resonance with me, but I really loved this run too, and I think for a lot of the same reasons. Robinson honored the tradition of family, created interesting stories, and made it feel like it mattered even though he knew he was on the title for a short time. As flawed as this run may be, the one thing it excelled at was being true to the core of the Fantastic Four. He did much the same thing in his very short stint on the Heroes Reborn title.
My favorite panel of all time is from To Kill A Legend from Detective 500 by Alan Brennert. The whole premise is that our Bruce Wayne as Batman saves the Waynes of another dimension. The young Bruce Wayne became driven not by loss and anger but by “awe and mystery and gratitude”. Alan Brennert in one story did more to 'fix' the Batman mythos than 30+ years of decent writers.
I think even if you could argue in an individual case that the love triangle thing is fun, as a whole I think it's the sort of thing actively hurting comics today, it's a crutch for cheap drama. And that's regardless of which triangle we're talking about. A man who neglects his family needs to work on that, a woman who has active attraction for another man and keeps it alive doesn't get a pass.
This resonates with me, since one of the first comic books that I bought with my own money and that I picked out, was a Gen13 and Fantastic Four cross over comic. I liked the art and it made me like the Fantastic Four even if I never ended up buying a lot of comics.^^; I looked it up, and it was " Gen 13 / Fantastic Four #1" that I bought.^^
I started reading comics when I was in 1st grade, some many decades ago. There was no real jumping on point for me. I just read whatever caught my on the spinner rack. Or I sought out characters I'd seen on tv or cartoons or movies. After awhile I picked up the Marvel Origins books from Fireside, or the Treasury Editions, or the odd digest that was out. Though, over all, it was just realizing that many of the stories were somewhat serialized and getting the next issue and the next issue and the next issue, and putting all the information together. Later still, it was going to the burgeoning comic book stores and picking up back issues to fill in the holes. Which has led to me having a small collection that is now approaching 11,000 books. And, like yourself, Sasha, there are some stories and some issues and some panels that have stayed with me, and I absolutely love. One of my favorites being from Astonishing X-Men #1, where Cyclops is in bed with Emma Frost and awakens to find Wolverine crouched on the foot board who asks "Which stage of grieving is this?"
I read a lot more comics as a little kid at the library in the early 2000s. Like there are big events I vaguely remember but I primarily read X-Men, Storm, Teen Titans an Starfire specific comics. However, when I wanted to follow along I would get lost in the companion titles and lose what I was reading about so, I fell off. I would love to go back to those titles and find out who the artists were and who wrote said stories. Honestly this is why I appreciate channels such as yours because I still love comics I just get so lost trying to read them. So, having a way to get the gist and still go read them is so helpful.
I'm one of those older adults who loved comics and read various iterations of them through the years, but also drifted away from them for a long time and returned. My comeback was a small Archie's digest. I remembered how much I loved comics and got back into them. My first major run was the entire hardbound collection of Warren's Vampirella. It took two years to complete the collection because it was pricey, but it was also worth it. I've expanded vastly since and am glad to have returned. Like superheroes, this is my new run - the new age of me.
I grew up reading comic books. I learned to read with Amazing Spider-Man 232, and have the nearly completely worn out comic on my wall in a case. My dad was a huge FF fan, and I got his early comics, so my youth was spent with Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. There's something wonderful about picking up an issue of FF and knowing the first family still endures to this day.
The phrase "Jumping on point." Must be something different to each different person. I´ve ALWAYS been a DC guy. That´s because, while growing up, that´s all there was. Re-runs of Superfriends, re-runs of the Batman Adam West, re-runs of Wonder Woman TV, the Batman movies...and then, all the animated stuff till now. However, I never decided to start reading comics until I was an adult. And that was because of the New 52. If I´ve asked where to start back then I don´t think I had been able to do so. More so, because I like to start from #1. And even while New 52 was on I didn´t want to read old stuff. Not because I knew it couldn´t be good but it wouldn´t be relevant. Of course, now is different. Even before starting reading casually I did get to buy and read some complete stories. Kingdom Come, Justice, Grant Morrison´s JLA, Superman: Emperor Joker...and while some were particulary great (Justice became one of my favorite comics and I even had dreams of JLA because of how good it was) I wouldn´t have decided to start reading anything. As with Sasha, I knew of so much hate towards the New 52 but I didn´t feel that way. Mainly because I got to read all the best stuff: Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Justice League...and so on. I didn´t get the chance to read any of the most hated titles because they didnt interest me. In fact, the only one title I could see how bad it could have been was Green Arrow. I was NEVER interested in Green Arrow. I didn´t like the character when I first met him in the JL TV show. I learned to really like him through ARROW. And I wanted to give him a chance. In Spain (where I am) they didn´t want to publish it...for a reason. As I read online how terrible it was. They still decided to publish with few of the most maligned run until the creative team was changed. And, wao, it WAS bad. But, as said, I didn´t enocunter any of it. All the comics were great. My favorites were Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Justice League...Green Lantern as well of course (being my favorite character) but his story continued Pre-New 52. As well, as taking advice of AMAZING titles... I´d even argue that. I´ve always read how incredible The Killing Joke was. A friend that had it let me read it and left me underwhelmed. And I wouldn´t have known what to do with Watchmen. I particulary didn´t like the movie (as great as it is and owining it). It was until years being reading comics when Doomsday Clock happened that I decided to read that. I really liked it so I decided to read Watchmen. I finally did (up until very recently) I now I can appreciate it...while still being there things that I fiind tough to read. And this is me now understanding and enjoying it. Had I bought it in the New 52 days or prior wouldn´t have liked it. However, one risk I did take during the New 52 was Sandman. I started reading it while the New 52 started and I did like it. A lot. And it amazed me because it was my first adult comic with an "old style of art" that would have normally threw me off. Today I think it does benefits it. ...and that´s my story. PS Wanted to add that while Justice League was very good. It got better and better as it went on...the comics I couldn´t wait for and had me hooked were Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Green Lantern. ...Batman/Detective Comics, I didn´t start to get it until later on. Not because I didn´t want to but because of monetary issues. And because I already had read Batman comics. However, a friend let me read some the issues and I knew I had to get it because, as usual, Batman comics are great. On the other hand I wasn´t sure if I wanted to read Flash or Aquaman. Flash I´ve never loved. Enjoy but that´s it. While Aquaman I always found interesting. I asked online about the the 2 and was told their styles. That made me choose Aquaman. Later on, that same friend, let me read his Flash comics and I knew I did the right choice.
Fantastically thought out Perspective of Jumping In too Comics 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 Brilliantly showcasing one of Your Experience & what hooked You, & Also Luv’d Your Perspective on It doesn’t matter what others opinions are on something You Like ( something the social media Generation needs to Learn IMO) …The FF stuff is Just Extra, Your Overall Perspective is what makes this Enlightening…Keep Up The Outstanding Work Sasha ( Oh & In Matching The FF Uniforms Look “ You Look Fantastic) 🖖🏾
“So many thoughts!!!” I beg you to check out James Robinson’s Jack Knight, Starman-the best use of canon and continuity ever. Should be studied. Also, Byrnes run on FF was the bomb. Best of the best.
I have been reading Daredevil through the year and I did so because of the Netflix series and while I enjoyed it the panel that really stuck with me was from a small collection from the 80s where Matt was sitting off by himself on a water tower thinking about how he was getting older and running a hand into his hair and it was just so human that even months later and many runs later I still think about it.
God it’s so refreshing to here your neutral positivity. How this can be bad but good to someone else. With all the one sided ness of hate or love for things lately it’s just super nice to hear your opinion and logical thinking
After struggling to jump into comics several times, I was only able to jump in with the New 52. As a fan now, I realize what a questionable decision erasing decades of history was, but at the same time, it was the only way I was able to jump on. I had tried picking up various collections, and they were always in the middle of things and depending heavily on past history. I just couldn't get in! The New 52 got me into comics, and I started with the Flash, and then I started picking up both new and old comics that had characters I'd remembered liking in the old JLU show, such as Captain Atom and Booster Gold. This led me back to the old JLI, and it really helped. As far as Marvel, the Young time-traveling X-men Marvel Now! Was the only thing that got me in, since I knew the original set but so much had happened, I found it difficult to jump in. I really enjoyed that run for a while (eventually, it got a bit old, but I was glad that it concluded and they went back.) So, reboots aren't all bad? All's well that ends well?
I haven't read FF #1 from that era, but you make it sound interesting. I like your thoughts and humor! I started out with kiddy comics, but later I would just read whatever my older brother read. The first FF I remember reading is #186 (1977), which I still have. Sometime around then Marvel published through Pocket Books a reprint of the first six or so issues bound in a tiny paperback format. It was harder to appreciate the art, but you could grab hold of the story. That was a much-appreciated early introduction to the beginning of the lore for me.
What an interesting experience to hear your entry point to a series that's now one of your favorites. Learning about the panels that really got to you and the why was really entertaining and I enjoyed it so much. Thanks for sharing your trip down memory lane.
The first issue of Cassandra Cain's Batgirl run I brought was issue #25, where she fought Lady Shiva, I enjoyed it and managed to get all the back issues the following week.
I still remember my first superhero comic - Rai and the Future Force #9. Jumps in the middle of a story, introducing a bunch of characters (several of whom die in the episode) and left me with a profound sense of "what the heck was that!". Unfortunately, I never found the next (or preceding) issue - my local comic shop wasn't helpful, and this was pre-Google, so I ended up going back to Sonic comics and never really got back to it. If I had been able to find the other issues, I probably would have stuck with it, but with all the barriers to entry (especially money - $5 allowances didn't go far in 1993!). Most of my early comic experiences were like that - single issues that I would come across at school or sometimes in the trash. I remember a Howard the Duck comic, and a Catwoman issue where she's patrolling Gotham while Batman was...away? Dead? Something - I just thought Catwoman was cool - but I could never follow a story for more than a single issue. When I went back to superhero comics in college, I found that I didn't need an onboarding story, but if I find a character or team I like, I do prefer to go back to the beginning and start from there. Started both Ghost Rider and Wonder Woman from the omnibus reprints because I just like seeing things evolve.
Sometimes I forget people around my age are married and/or parents now, and things like comics and games land differently from that perspective. I think I miss a lot of nuance when it comes to married couples like Reed and Sue (and Lois and Clark). Little details that wouldn't stand out to me at first if at all, but would floor me if I could relate.
The Eternals were kind of my version of this. When it started leaking that the movie was coming all heard was people complaining and calling them laim and I just wanted wanted to know what they even were. So I read the new comic and felt in love with it, saw the film and also loved it and now I got an Eternals themed crossover event and a preorder of that omnibus of 70s and 80s runs that's coming.
Honestly, I agree so much with the sentiment that any comic can be someone's first. The biggest point of entry for me was when I found a second hand book shop that had boxes of loose slightly dog-eared comics for 20p each. They weren't in any order and the chances of finding a 1st issue or sequential run were almost nil (though I did find The Man Called Nova #1 and I still have it). I would save as much of my school lunch money as possible without starving myself and then at the weekend I would buy as many comics as I could afford, based mainly off which covers looked interesting. It got me into a lot of different series. I became particularly enamoured with The New Mutants and Nova/The New Warriors. The Internet wasn't widely available at the time but it set me off on the journey of finding out as much as I could about these fictional universes. And by the time I actually had some spending power, I had a solid idea of where I wanted it to go. 20+ years laters I'm an adult with a job, a missus, a mortgage, and a pull list, and comics still have the power to get me excited like no other medium. Wish they were still that cheap though 😂
I jumped on FF half way through hickman's run but the reason i fell in love with FF was pretty much the same. The realness of the relationship and family dynamic, especially Reed not being a perfect husband and father.
As a guy who has never and will never experience love, I really like your take. Yet, I think there is a little variant you might also appreciate. Sort of a parallel interpretation. He isn't saying he is trying he is simply but meaningfully appealing to the kind person she is when not so distraught. He is pulling at her true self to come out and hear him with an open mind rather than pain. Its still a choice she is making. People are quick to assume what someone means and even if they know better than can hold onto that hot take despite evidence or personal knowledge to the contrary. It is hard to be better than that sometimes.
@@Galvatronover there are a few reasons, to pick one.. I dont have the qualities to a gain a woman's attention. Neither do I have the audacity or confidence to disturb their peace meaningfully for selfish reasons and being asking them for their time. Even were I to do so, the experience needed to impress or entertain is something I lack.. Sometimes I think self termination is more likely than dating Cool name btw
13:00 This is genuinely such good advice that at least for myself has been difficult to put into practice lol, it can be hard to not take things personally or not let what others say affect me even for things that are kinda simple in the bigger picture like a favourite hobby. Maybe it's something about sharing these communities with strangers and how much the community aspect is involved with my engagement altogether, I wouldn't be into comics like I am if it wasn't for the guidance of online forums, TH-camrs, and communities all sharing information. You folks in Sasha's comments are awesome but circles change everywhere you go online, I need to brainstorm ways of filtering through affectations from people who i really should not concern myself with and managing my own anxieties about being accepted when all I'm trying to do is take part in a hobby that I really enjoy.
I'm a sucker for a good jumping on point, like a new no. 1, a new creative team or a universal reboot. I think the only time I've jumped in in the middle was when I got back into American comics in 2020 after an absence of several years. I started with the Batman Joker War arc, even though I didn't understand the context that had led up to it. Actually, technically I got into comics in the first place by jumping in the middle. My Mum bought me a Phantom comic to read on a road trip and it got me hooked. Thankfully, it was the 70th anniversary special, so it included a lot of supplemental information that helped me get caught up.
Thank you for this video. I know several people who need to hear this kind of thing. They want to get into comics, but they're paralyzed by the WHERE DO I START syndrome.
Three favorite jumping on points: Sleepwalker #1: The very first time I started reading a superhero comic from the very beginning. I love the characters and semi-lament/semi-take pride in it being a character that even heavy super hero nerds haven't always heard. Avengers Disassembled/New Avengers: I never gave much've a shit about the JLA or The Avengers in my first decade and a half of comics reading. This changed when Ultimate Spidey Scribe Brian Michael Bendis and/or his evil twin Michael Brian Bendat took over and I decided to check it out after trying to read House of M and was too lost. I'd heard about and read synopsises of the Avengers key story arcs, but this was the first I really wanted to take a look at. Invincible #1: In a way, this is kind of like how you describe that FF#1, because it feels like a jumping on point for a comics universe/series that has been around for decades, even though we're only seeing it now. It feels like there's another universe where Omni-Man has been steadily published since the 1960s and is considered "The only Superman wannabe who's ever given the OG Man of Steel a real challenge, much less a run for his money." Heck, it almost feels like Jonathan Kent a.k.a. Superman Son of Kal-El is stuck under the shadow of Mark Grayson a.k.a. Invincible, because people would surely compare the two a lot at this point.
I have this complete run and I haven’t read it since it first happened. Thanks for reminding me about it. I should reread it. The best place to jump in any Western comic in my opinion is where ever you want. If you can start at an issue #1 great start there. Jumping in in the middle of a story is part of the fun and hunting down back issues to see what was happening makes it more fun.
When you’re a comic company’s first superhero family, you build up a lifetime of complexity, and I find that cool that that’s reflected in the Fantastic Four
The first daredevil comic I read was a collection of Daredevil 2011 and I was incredibly confused but I read the whole thing and liked it. The Christmas sweater is iconic
Small world. This actually was my first Fantastic Four reading as well. I got it on sale for $1.50 when my local Hastings was having an out of business sale and it was my first Marvel book after years of DC. Between the red costume and the cheap price, I figure why not. I have no regrets
10:08 Insert Community meme My first FF comic was actually the beginning of the Slott run, I got into reading comics in like 2019 so the amount of FF material was obviously limited and I actually had the same reaction everyone hates this but I like it. When COVID hit and they had a print gap, I went back to read everything and found not only Byrne's (which is one of my favorites and also has the omnibus) but discovered my love O'Neil's Iron Man run, which led me down the rabbit hole of his work at DC. Jumping on points is great, but like you don't know what's going on in the story just yet like everyone who has been reading comics for years, and part of being a comics fan is reading something, going huh that was weird and then looking up why it makes sense and talking with other comics fan who may have a context like why something happened that way based on interviews they read. Talking about this run, they need a collected edition!
Walt Simonson's Thor run, the issue where he got rid of the Donald Blake alter ego. I'd been an occasional reader of Thor comics over the years but he was never a favorite or must but. That issue with the banishment of Donald Blake- such an integral part of the character- floored me. I HAD to buy it to see what was going on and became instantly hooked. Considering that we also got Thorg and Beta Ray Bill out of that run, as well as a re-imagined Loki, and man, did that make me a huge fan of old 'Goldilocks' Thor.
Just finished reading this run. It's an interesting unfortunately mostly forgotten run that was surprisingly pretty fun for me. I need a really fun issue or a character focused story for my jumping on point. The one I can remember is the Hulk. I'd read a few big books that he'd been in but never much else. I was reading issues digitally and somehow came across hulk issue 291 with a sad General Thunderbolt Ross holding a gun to his head which shocked me because that's not what is expected for a superhero comic. The inside story has Thunderbolt Ross recounting his classic adventures trying to catch the hulk and how his obsession ruined his relationships and left him alone. That issue took the one note angry army general Ross always was portrayed him as and really gave him some depth for me. So I've read a lot of hulk stories around that issue.
The "Thing vs Hulk" story I remember was a short run parody series of comic books that had "The Inedible Bulk vs The Ever Loving Thung". There were other crossovers as well, but that is the issue I remember the best. This was in either the late 1960s or early 1970s, I'm pretty sure.
Heh. My "jumping-on" points for various Marvel comics (Note: These are ALL pre-internet, pre-stores devoted exclusively to comics, pre-direct sales (where comics were sold at drugstores, convenience stores, etc, and the risk of missing an issue was all too real!), and pre the acceptance that comics and comics-related media have today!): CAPTAIN AMERICA: My favorite Marvel hero! The first issue I picked up, the story is about how The Falcon...Cap's partner, his co-star, the guy whose name is on the cover too!....is a pawn, a plant, a sleeper agent of The Red Skull! The phrase didn't exist in 1975, but WTF?!? FANTASTIC FOUR: The FF returned to "their" Earth from Counter-Earth, smack into the Marvel Comics's NYC offices, and the Bullpen circa 1976!! Gorgeous art by George Perez. The Amazing Spider-Man: First page: Peter Parker sitting on a stoop while his dead ex-girlfriend, who's now strangely alive, acts confused, and a ghostly image of Spider-Man taunts Peter!!. First. Page. Incredible Hulk: The Hulk was shrunk down to sub-atomic size and ended up on an alien planet where he had Bruce Banner's intellect, was there before and was hailed a s a hero, and, oh yes, had a hot babe girlfriend!! The Avengers: The history of the team is recapped while the membership changes. Actually, that was a pretty good "jumping-on" point. Well, until Wonder Man, a hero was said to have died years ago, earlier in the issue, is shipped to Avengers Mansion in a big crate which he busts out of, and accuses the red and green guy "stole [his] mind"!! X-Men (They weren't *officially* Uncanny X-Men yet!): The X-Men's leader is having dreams of star wars (Right when anticipation of the upcoming movie was building!). There's a page of a funny Star Trek pastiche drawn by Dave Cockrum. But otherwise, Fire-Lord? Eric The Red?? Huh?? And those are the major ones. I waited until issue 100 to start reading Iron Man, 50 to start reading Defenders (the *finale* of a three-issue arc featuring a Nick Fury LMD! Boy, was *that* confusing!!). But there you have it!! Like you, I had varying degrees of passing familiarity with Marvel having been around the comics...and "animated" series....in the '60s and before-I-started-seriously-reading-and-collecting early '70s. But still...!!
I'm so glad that you covered this comic. I remember comic readers having fairly harsh reactions to this series as well. The retailer I would visit at the time went as far as to say he thought this run was an assassination attempt on the FF by Marvel because Disney did not own the rights to those characters. Which makes no sense to me at all! The idea being they would destroy the original FF and replace them with other characters?? I have to wonder if this was internet gossip that was going around or just something this one fellow concocted. But I always wanted to read these books but never got around to it. I will have to seek them out.
I got into comics via X-Men comics smack in the middle of the Mutant Massacre, particularly the issue where Colossus kills Riptide. I think it was #211. I was like 10 years old and though I was a little lost as to the plot I absolutely fell in love with the characters and I was hooked. So I've never understood the idea that every comic could be someone's first meant that readers need to be handheld and spoon fed. All I needed to know from my first comic was there's a bunch of bad people killing a bunch of innocent people and there's a bunch of cool people with powers throwing themselves into harm's way to stop them. I think a bigger problem is that these days comics often lack focus, so you can go multiple issues in some series without really getting a good idea of what the conflict is or what the stakes are...and most importantly, why the reader should care.
Very cool video; fun to hear someone's jumping on point for something that they now love. Can't recall any of my own; every character I'm a major fan of seems to have just been already in the air by and at least recognizable to me by the time I first read, listened to or watched them. The rest that I recall are just second-tier by comparison. But, if it means anything, I recall the year I became a fan of Flipper. Staying at my grandmother's (after school?) and her making some little snack and letting me eat in front of the (big furniture) TV set and Flipper reruns being the only thing on. Never even heard of him, I don't think. But the second I heard the theme-song I was hooked. I couldn't be budged from in front of it (except to clean my plate, so I always left some on it and picked at it so I didn't have to). As a major Aquaman and Lassie fan, it struck the perfect cord. I think one thing that got me was not a single kid in school seemed to have a clue who he was or what I was on about.
My first comic was a collection of updated origins for Ant-man & the Wasp, Vision and Luke Cage when I was 9 (before I knew there were superheroes other than Batman from the Brave & the Bold TV series). The Luke Cage origin was the first time I saw a character who had the anger I felt unable to control at the time who wasn't the bad guy and despite being a very different story Vision's origin showed a redemption that after being in multiple fights at school I felt I needed. I reread that book until half the pages fell out and the panels were seared into my mind yet I have absolutely no idea who created them.
I have consistently struggled to get into comics, because most of the time I pick something up, stick with it a few issues, and get sick of feeling lost. I also have the issue of having… let’s say finicky aesthetic tastes. There are lots of times I’ve asked where a good place to start for something is, looked up the resulting recs, and just been *completely* turned off by the art style. There’s also the problem where I can’t read WIP thanks to my ADHD; if there’s a break of more than a week between installments of the story, object impermanence means I’m *way* more likely to forget I was trying to keep up with it at all, let alone checking back in. And there’s nothing more aggravating than trying to read a full storyline, and having whole chunks of it just be missing, or cost +$50 just to find out what happens next. All that said, I have spent the last year or two buckling down and really working to dig in again, and I have been having fun. I do love expansive lore, complex characters, and works that aren’t afraid of their own silliness. It’s just that all adds up to an ocean of content, which is intimidating in its own right even without the first 30ft or so being ice-cold when I try to wade in. I haven’t found the riptide to yank me fully out to sea, but I am deep enough that I’m acclimatizing to the temperature, if that makes sense. I get what other people love about it, and getting out sounds more uncomfortable than going deeper at this point. …And if that sounds ominous, it’s probably because I’m reading in chronological order, and I’ve just started the 90s. Wish me luck.
I do get your point regarding the art style. I´d argue that the art is the most important part of the comic. It is what your eyes first encounter. You can have the most amazing story in the world but if you don´t like the art...what´s the point? On the other hand, the story can be mediocre or even bad but what you end up remembering is the drawing. That´s why is so important that both aspects are equal. I´ve been lucky enough where most of the time the art is to my liking in all of the comics I read. That being said, there have been the cases where the art is just plain awful because either the artist was changed for whatever reason or they did it on purpose because of the story and it was rough. In fact, it was so much to my dislike that either the story was on par or maybe it was even good but I just couldn´t get through the art.
Damn! This was an unusual video for the channel but honestly a very welcome one that deals with issues of fandom rarely spoken of... and that is the seemingly unlikeable stuff that some of us just love! For me... I love the Judge Dredd (1995) movie... could watch it everyday, I think it's perfect! Also love the most recent film (at time of writing lol) but nothing gets me happier than Sylvester Stallone screaming "I AM THE LAW!"... and Armad Assante's excellent follow up monologue.... totally about to watch it again for a millionth time!
My current comic book introduction is going to the antique store across from my home and grabbing any dollar comic that's cover appeals to me and then if I like it, maybe I'll search for the full run. I don't look into people's opinions on the comics because I don't want to go into it with an opinion in mind
The very first Star Wars book I read (legends now, I guess) was the third part of a series set something like 15 years after Return of the Jedi was set. Showdown at Centerpoint. I had no idea what was going on, was shocked that Hahn and Leia had not one, but THREE kids at the time, Hahn had an evil cousin bouncing around, and Luke had already trained a group of new Jedi somewhere... it was insane! But I loved it. I was hooked, and dove deep into those books. Still have some of them 20 years later, including that trilogy!
My jumping on point for my high school return to comics was Batman/Detective Comics (not sure the numbers, but in the waning pre-Crisis days) where and Robin named Jason Todd was in the aftermath of some odd character named Nocturnal trying to steal him. Vicki Vale and Julia Remarque, daughter of Alfred and Mademoiselle Marie (who I remembered well, along with Sgt. Rock, the Unknown Soldier, and the Haunted Tank) are important support characters, and it was great! And pre-internet. Editor's notes are awesome, and I'm glad a young whippersnapper appreciates them. That Fantastic Four cartoon was pretty good, and if you haven't read X-Men vs. Fantastic Four, but love Reed/Sue moments, check it out!
What are some panels that made you love a character or team?
I go for the Fact one
The panels where Moon Girl is working on a Lego thing for school (yes it was a blatant advertisement) and talked about how much she loved herself despite being so abrasive and standoffish. It resonated with me, as someone who's often described similarly. It really informs the character and what her strengths are
The opposite is when the birds of prey bullied batman, I thought he was an annoying loser for years. I still do but he's MY annoying loser ❤️
The desperation of Jason Todd's revival. He will always be my favorite. A parental figure that failed and the depression and hurt that comes from that.. it did something for me. He was angry and violent, so I didn't have to be.
Captain UK (Linda McQuillan) -- There's a sequence in The Crooked World/Jasper's Warp where she's being forced to strip, revealing her superhero uniform under her clothes, and she's just so terrified -- It's a reversal of what the super suit is meant to do, fill someone with power and courage.
That, and earlier in the same story, she crushes a pipe in one hand out of fear, showing how strong she really is but how powerless and terrified she really feels.
Makes the final catharsis of her finding her courage in the most violent manner possible against the invincible Fury so much more satisfying. Alan Moore nailed it.
Jason Todd refusing to kill Bizarro on The Outlaws. That's when i fell in love with the character.
We NEED a video talking about Valeria! Byrne gave us a POWERFUL story about Sue losing her baby in childbirth and having to just DEAL with that, something that never happened in superhero stories before! There was no "fixing" it with sci fi nonsense, it was just a fact of life, as many readers had to deal with...until Waid (building on something Claremont established) did just that. The addition of Valeria to the family has turned out to be a lasting and popular one, that will almost certainly make it into the next tv or movie adaptation...but does it undercut the power and meaning of the original story? I've never heard Byrne's comments on it, but I can't imagine he's pleased to have been retconned so thoroughly...
(Although I must admit, I love the image of the Richard's daughter just idly running away to "Uncle Doom" whenever she gets mad or just bored, lounging around his castle...Doom is just petty enough to gloat about it, too!)
Valeria: Uncle Vic, I can't log in to my Steam account...
Dr. Doom: (To shadowy figures on multiple screens.) A moment, ladies and gentlemen. (To Val) Steam is not an approved website in Latveria.
Val: What? Why? It's just a game aggregator.
DD: Yes, well, when Valve learns to count to three, I might consider adding them back in. (To screens.) As I was saying, you have twenty-four hours to...
@@CasualNotice You think Doom wouldn't have the means to make an exception for his favorite child? Are you crazy? Of course Val could access Steam in Latveria with Doom's very own VPN!
@@louisvictor3473 Or would doom be using it for more nefarious reasons and doesn't want to warp the child's mind with the gamb..i mean 'surprise mechanics' of his latest game?
While not in childbirth, the Aquababy had been killed years before Sue's miscarriage, the former which led to one of Mera's most defining storylines about her grief and trauma. Just a year after Sue's miscarriage, Wanda Maximoff would lose her own infant twin boys in the storyline that primarily inspired Wandavision, and in the 90s, Mary Jane was poisoned and forced to suffer a miscarriage too, so I wouldn't say undoing Baby Valeria's death took away a very "unique" plot development in comics as there was a time where male writers thought the most interesting way to give some complexity to a female character was to have her lose her very young children.
I loved to hear you talking about Sue's and Reed's relationship! I hate when there's some runs who turn their marriage into some comic relief deal or try to simplify it- their marriage is so complicated and they somehow make it work while balancing their careers, not limited to their superhero team, either! I've lost count of how some writers just summ it up to "Reed just doesn't get human emotions! See what poor Sue has to deal with?"
I think some of the better stories show Reed and Sue having a proper adult relation through the good times as well as bad.
Unfortunately, that's the short hand most media are familiar with. I'm not one of those "men's rights" or "hollywood elites" whackos, but I am honestly cringing to think how R&S might be depicted in the movies going forward. I really do hope we get a take like these panels show, just two decent people who genuinely love, respect and forgive one another, even when they make mistakes or lash out. We should all be so lucky...
@@HandofOmega lol yeah, I like showing reed and sue as a happy couple but have disagreements sometimes due to differing priorities.
@@HandofOmega I have no hope for Disney marvel making a good Fantastic Four movie. Rather just rewatch the movie from 2005.
Reed richards and sue storm have the one of if not the most complicated relationships in all of marvel maybe even in all of comics
It feels strange to say, but for me, my jumping-on point for FF was FF#1, The original one. I was present for the dawn of the Silver Age, lol.
I forgot to mention it earlier, but, after getting into them with Byrne's run, THE first comic collection I convinced my parents to buy was one that collected the first dozen issues of the original run, along with some later issues such as the first appearance of the Inhumans and Galactus! Great stuff!
Anyway, it's so interesting to hear from folks who were there at the start of it all! Did you read most of the other heroes as they debuted after? When did you learn just how much that issue you had probably lost years ago was worth now and how do you feel about having your old comics thrown out? LOL
I did the same thing but with Spider-man i started with Amazing Fantasy no.15 and i'm now on like TASM No.68
The panel that made me fall in love with a character was one of Vision where he holding Jessica Jones’ daughter and says “Babies like it when I make pretty lights on my forehead, that’s a trick you learn as an overworked father that doesn’t sleep”
Then Jessica goes “oh I had no idea you had children”
And it’s just a panel of Vision turned around, phasing through the ceiling and saying “I didn’t”
Ouch.
What issue is that?
My read on Reed is simply that he is so smart that he is almost incomprehensible. To me, the classic Reed moment is the one where he effectively lobotomizes Franklin to keep him from potentially killing everyone. It seems like a gross overreaction, and it is effectively sacrificing his family (with a device he had already ready), but he was too smart to let his emotions stop him. His lack of emotional intelligence in the face of his vast genius is a wonderful part of his character (and a great way to differentiate him from Tony Stark or even Lex Luthor. Tony and Lex use science to get them things they want. Reed uses it to find out and interact with whatever is objectively true: what anyone wants is secondary to the reality of the universe in his mind. Also importantly, he understands that others cannot 'get' him and he accepts that without manipulating it.
The Reed/Sue relationship is one of my favourite in comics because of how real they feel.
One of the big moments for me was that issue where everyone has a bunch of important stuff going on but Reed gets a call rom a man with cancer he'd met and promised to be with in his final moments. In other stories I would have expected this to start a big blow up but Sue vents a bit then asks reed if what he needed to do was that important. When he answers they hug it out, presumably talk things through and are back to normal the next day. It feels like a real, mature love grown from mutual understanding and time.
In my early comic-reading days, I'd just read whatever was in front of me. None of them were jumping-on points. And I really liked the feeling of discovery that came from not knowing the full background. Sometimes it took years to read earlier stories. I was reading Captain Britain just after the Jaspers Warp story and Moore's run had taken on an almost mythic quality by the time I got to finally read it. Reading comics doesn't have to be all neat and tidy.
More people need to read Moore's Captain Britain -- It's a masterclass in balancing the fun weirdness of comics with well-constructed characters and story.
Plus it's basically the origin of the greater Marvel Omniverse and, by that token, the MCU.
man I'm the exact opposite, I love reading things from start to finish, its one of the reason's I love manga so much, so reading something out of order and inconsistently not from chapter 1 or volume 1 just seems wrong, since it's like your skipping over alot of the story to get to the good part.
I was the same way until I read the first issue of Ed Brubaker's run on Captain America. After that, I began actually paying attention to writers I liked, making sure I followed storyline from beginning to end, and just getting really invested into the universe.
I think necessity plays a role. Back in the day it could actually be quite difficult to follow a title through from issue to issue, especially outside of America. So if you liked superhero comics you just grabbed what you could, when you could. a
And if you managed to collect a full extended story arc, that was an achievement.
It's much easier to start at A beginning now, if not THE beginning, by picking a run a going from there. Especially with digital comic libraries. I'm unlikely to pick up a title mid-run now, simply because I don't have to anymore. But I also agree that US comics could learn a lot from manga when it comes to availability, distribution, and affordability.
Similar experience. I started when DC had those giant 100 Pages for 60 cents comics. New story first and the rest were reprints. Really helped fill in my knowledge going forward. DC also.did one and done stories which was awesome. Marvel left me stuck often with cliffhangers before I understood how they were published. Daredevil had Man-Thing sicced on him in 1973 by Death Stalker and it took until fairly recently when Marvel Universe finally added the next issue.
Other media really does help with this.
If someone who doesn't read comics watches a movie, or a cartoon, or stumbles into our little fandom here on youtube then they can see characters that catch their eye and at least know where to start looking
James Robinson is such an underrated writer! It's great writing and art, no matter where you come into a story, that works for me. Also, when I started reading comics, the idea that every story could be someone's first was a major factor in the storytelling. It was a big deal if there was a 3 part story, and (this is before comicbook stores) it was a problem if I'd be able to get all 3 parts, ever! You kids today have it so easy, LOL!!
"3 part story"
*laughs in one piece having a 20+ year, 1000+ chapter story all about finding the thing the series is named after*
I think his rating is exactly what it should be - he's highly respected and regarded. He has survived that terrible story that nearly every writer puts out eventually and his was Cry For Justice.
Reed and Sue relationship is very interesting and complicated, Reed having a hard time with human emotions and Sue listening to Namor play Mr. Steal Your Girl at her every day and night
Namor is always there, waiting in the wings...cause they're on his feet lol
Oh Silk and Spider-Man weren't just making out, they couldn't stop f#@king! Lol
I don't remember a particular jumping on point for any particular title, but one early FF memory that helped to hook me on classic Marvel was the cover to FF#92, "Ben Grimm, Killer!" It was an instantly compelling Kirby cover, and unlike anything I had seen in comics at the time. My dad used to come home with Marvel books and it was exposure to those Lee/Kirby/Ditko silver age books that made me a regular comics reader. And the crazy storylines of Marvel in the mid-70s sealed the deal. I think it was a combination of bold stories, great art, and Stan's way of capturing character through dialog that kept me coming back.
I love the "don't be mean" line so so much. In a meta format of the trade thing it establishes that what Sue said wasn't a quip. I think if it was a new scene after that line it would've been seen as a zinger. But the acknowledgment made it feel so much more like a real conversation, and makes the rest of this whole interaction so much stronger.
And as a character moment its so nice for all the reasons you said.
I always thought that Reed puts his family first and his love of knowledge second, but that’s just based on what I’ve read (which is a lot)
The way you just described Reed and Sue's relationship has inspired me to start reading Fantastic Four.
How did it go?
Standing by the cartoon series too lol
Sucks that it didn't continue past Season 1. Literally one of, if not the best representations of the FF **on screen**. Especially Sue, really liked her portrayal in the show :3
I still laugh to think of Johnny's reaction to meeting Namor: "Dude! Look at his EARS!!" LOL
Comics never get credit
It is episodes like this that makes me appreciate this channel. Your love of comics and the way you interpret it. Thank you!
....a few things; first each comic is potentially someones first which is why they should at the least aim for the fence. Second, the F.F. have been dealt a shaky hand because of what has come before, it is DIFFICULT to surpass Artistic benchmarks and Nostalgia. Third-ly, that malice stuff was Reed pushing Sue pass his general insensitivity-character flaw to break the "spell" of the Hate Monger,.....and it worked.(Byrne's run was really good....great memories....nostalgia.) A SUPERIOR look into the motivations of a "comics" Lover. Thank you for sharing dear Sister, PEACE and God bless.
Sasha, so nice to see someone say something POSITIVE about the FF. Most people seem to discount it or say it's too dated to be interesting..
You REALLY should spend an episode talking about how good that Fantastic Four cartoon was. It really was a fun romp with Marvel's first family.
You are a great, comic librarian. And a great TH-cam Therapist. I've been reading comics for around 50 years. You bring out great emotions in me. That I haven't experienced in quite a long time. Well done!
The thing that got me into comics was the MCU. But I think actually that the thing that made me fall in love with comics was from Tom King's Batman run. I picked up a trade of I Am Suicide and the part with Batman's letter to Catwoman just...really hit me. It got me into the run, which I still love, and I think it was a big part of making me start collecting comics week to week.
Sasha, I really appreciated what you said here. Marriage can be very taxing to both partners as they each have to live with their respective weaknesses as well as their strengths. I never noticed that Sue is one of the most powerful FF members because she does truly love read, even though his priorities are out of whack, he does try to help the woman that he truly loves, and he knows he's lucky to have her.
My first FF was fighting the Frightful Four when Johnny was "being controlled" by the Wizard and his ID machine. (#42)
A not-so-strange jumping on point for the X-men for me was back when Marvel was reprinting the first few issues of X-men in a new comic called Amazing Adventures. Having seen where the X-men were originally, this gave me the confidence to start buying the then-new issues of X-men, near the beginning of the Dark Phoenix saga. I'm glad I didn't miss out on those comics.
This was my jumping on point for the X-Men as well. I didn’t realize/understand the reprint nature of it, so when I fell upon X-Men #138 with the funeral for Jean Grey I was devastated (and hooked at the same time)
2:16 YES!!! Finally someone who remembers this cartoon! I can't say that it's good or bad but it certainly is nostalgic for me
I knew the FF from the cartoons and some bits from Spider-Man & His Amazing friends. But my serious FF jumping on point to the comic was way back in Byrne’s run, issue 244, “Beginnings and Endings”. It was the issue where Reed saves a weakened Galactus and Frankie Raye become his new herald as Nova. The panels that stuck with me most were Nova stating “And I’m free!” before flying up into the sky towards space and not even noticing as Johnny chased after her before burning out at the edge of atmosphere while she obliviously continued on. I thought that was really cold of her but she had gained a freedom that I have always coveted, so I understood.
With the next issue, “Childhood’s End”, I was hooked, especially with the revelation of why Reed’s attempts to cure Ben always failed. I had recognized Byrne’s art from having read an X-Men comic (Wolverine alone in the Hellfire Club during the Dark Phoenix saga) when I was younger (gotten from a comic spinning rack at a pharmacy) but never knew he could write as well. From there no dove in and with the emergence of dedicated comic book stores picked up his run there and on the X-Men and Alpha Flight and…
Byrne on the FF, Simonson on Thor, Claremont on X-Men, and Roger Stern on the Avengers and Doctor Strange. To me that will always be the true Golden Age of Marvel Comics.
I remembered when I picked out my first avengers comic and it was Civil War. Specifically an issue where Ultron/ Hank Pym kidnapped the avengers in this bizarre family dinner to get them to stop fighting. The whole thing was so creepy but heart wrenching.
There was this part where was psychoanalising the whole team and bringing up their horrible traumas and it ended with Tony just saying “You want to know what happened to us? The truth the avengers died the day you slapped Janet”
By that point all I knew about the avengers was from the MCU and the cartoon, cannot even explain how much it shook me. Literally gasped out loud.
Yeah civil war has some problems
I honestly jumped on the FF during the Carlos Pacheco (May he rest in peace) run before Waid's with Heroes Return, I watched the 90s FF series and wanted to get into it. I remember it because the Baxter Building wasn't there and they literally had their base on a Pier. I think it was Pier 4. I miss the Pier! It was the Diablo issue and honestly it not only hooked me on the FF, but also loving Diablo as a villain.
It’s can be a problematic trope to assume a genius is on the spectrum but I think Reed could be seen that way. He loves his family and is driven by his work but it’s clear he doesn’t “get people” and has a hard time reading them. The reason he and Sue work is because she understands that and he, for his part, can read her better then he can most other people. It’s a constant struggle, what marriage isn’t, but it’s heartwarming to know they always come out together and in love. It’s the whole F4 family dynamic. They are a family. Families fight. Being in a family is hard but at the end of the day they are still family.
My favorite runs of FF were the Mark Waid, Mike Wieringo, & Karl Kessel run, the Walt Simonson run, & the John Byrne run. Good times! ❤️
When I first got Marvel Unlimited one of the characters I wanted to get into but didn't know where to start was Captain Marvel so I decided why not start from the beginning in 1977 and I absolutely enjoyed it from the beginning but what stood out to me was during #9 Deathbird's first debut, she rescues two kids out of a burning building they're fine and girl is fine mentally but the boy isn't and he starts to hold in his tears but Carol conforts him and tells him he's allowed to be scared and cry. It really stood out to me because boys are often told they need to man up and be a baby even now and this felt like a such strong stance since it was out in the late 70s. This is Carol to me now, someone who is mighty strong but will always do the little things like confort a child before moving on to the next thing as well as always being ahead of her times with her strong sense of feminist and her many views. I love this run but I've found out not many people like it espically before Chris Claremont went onto it but this and many other parts of this run made really love and appreciate Carol and see her in a new light after finding her movie and character average at best.
A positive view of Reed & Sue's relationship. That's like finding a unicorn!
Oh lord... "Marvel NOW!"... When you take the event punchline of "nothing will ever be the same again!" and make it a whole period of time... To be fair, while that idea (not reverting to the status quo immediately after an event) is exactly what I want in comics, but man did they bungle the execution.
My FF jump on was through Panini reprints while visiting my gran in hospital -- same with most of my comics, really! The FF were in the weirdness of the Claremont run (Reed VS the super apes, Sue VS the iconoclast), The Avengers were going into the Forever event, and Spidey was having a full on Identity Crisis!
Oh, and the X-Men were in Zero Tolerance... Joseph's first appearance was my first issue, lol.
I started FF with Civil War..... but I'll say Hickman's arc made me LLLOOVVVEEEEE them even more
Susan Storm Richards is the perfect example of a character’s depiction evolving to match the times. Originally, she was the girlfriend/sister and nearly an afterthought of the team dynamic. (Invisibility? Force fields? Bo-ring!) from that, she became a wife, a vital member of the team, and, arguably, the most powerful Member of the Fantastic Four. And she’s become her own woman with her own drives. That family is still the greatest of those drives is admirable.
And all of this is an example of what Marvel does best; a focus on the ‘human’ over the ‘super.’ When done right, you get tremendously real and relatable person and not just a pretty bit of art on a page. You rejoice when they succeed and feel sadness when they fail. It’s hard to believe your next door neighbor is Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman, but you probably wouldn’t be surprised if the Invisible Woman knocked on your door to borrow a cup of sugar.
ngl, I still like superman, wonder woman and flash tho.
Sure superman isn't relatable, but that's okay because you have clark kent to balance out supes perfection with a perfectly average, good man.
Equally flash is insanely op and fast, yet the quirky, always late but charming barry allen grounds him and wally's empathy balancing out his goofiness.
Loved this story about your FF starting point. My starting point on super hero comics was JLA/Avengers 3, the one comic where all the DC and Marvel canon was smashed together and the heroes had their memories confused. I simply loved it, the scale, the emotional beats, this notion that there was a gigantic "lore" and, really, history of this world and character's saga that I was fascinated about learning piece by piece (had no functional internet back then) in editors notes on then current comics or special almanacs about all the 70+ history I missed out, and even today I'm far from knowing and it all (one reason I love silver and bronze age deep dives haha) and that's part of the fun. I'll never get behind the "simplify/retcon/reboot or perish" mentality in comics editing to get new readers. I'm just not sure there are so many people that are taken aback by chronology instead of fascinated by it.
Well said. One of my favorite jumping on moments was Alpha Flight #72. I came across a beat up copy in a bargain bin as a kid. The story was told through Madison Jeffries and opens up with him sitting desolate, on his destroyed Box armor. Telling the story of how they utterly defeated. That opening and the moment where Heather Hudson with no Vindicator suit stares down Llan the Sorcerer. Between Hudnall's writing and Taloc's lines, I was hooked.
They haven't been given the proper respect in years, but Alpha Flight will always be one of, if not my #1, favorite super hero team. I think part of what I loved was since they aren't Marvel's top tier team, more chances could be taken with them in their first series.
What I look for from a jumping on point is the beginning of a arc or saga, essentially starting from chapter 1 of that story, and then moving onto the next. I really like to keep things neat and tidy when it comes to reading order and such.
Every comic could be someone's first. That is so true. The Tin Tin Comics taught me how to read. Not the traditional superhero comic, but I loved the colors and the art.
Oh wow, how I got into the FF...I think it started with watching the old cartoon (you know, the one that used actual Kirby art?) on sat mornings, then picking up the odd comic from the grocery store...But it picked up in earnest with John Byrne's run! That artwork was like nothing I'd ever seen, and for the first time, made me check the credits to see who was responsible for this awesomeness...and it blew my kiddie mind that he was also the writer! That was the first time it occurred to me that one could make a living telling stories, and inspired me in my life's work! Needless to say, I've been a huge FF fan ever since, esp during the Simonson and Waid eras (shout out to the Claremont era, which gave us the first Valeria, sort of, and Grant Morrison's "1-2-3-4" miniseries, which must be read to be believed, and YES, that later cartoon WAS Fire!), and I was one of the few who thought the two movies *nailed* the essence of the FF, tho the story wasn't much and they got Doom just as wrong as the family was right (I would love to see what 80s Spielberg could have done with them; or the creator of the Incredibles, Brad Bird, today)! Anyway, that's my story with the FF (and I'm still kicking myself for failing to grab that hardcover collection of JBs run from my FLCS when I had the chance...); TLDR, the FF and I go WAY back!
EDIT: Thanks for suggesting this run, which I was unaware of! Honestly, I've never even SEEN the red costumes before now, this is all new to me! Hopefully, I'll be able to get into it soon...
Great moment! When I started reading properly my first pick was Batman Hush Part 10 of 12. I just thought the art looked cool. But the narration and world hooked me in. I read that issue over and over and found new things in every line while guessing what the the context was. This was before I could use the internet. I started finding other issues and read the whole story out of order and loved it.
I loved this video. I love how passionate but also logical you are about comics. So my jumping on point for the X-men was the first Excalibur series. It cemented my love of Alan Davis' art. To this day I still pick up anything he draws. Also it introduced me to Nightcrawler, my all time favorite comic book character. I came in near the beginning of the run but not at #1, so it was my first foray into back issue hunting.
I jumped into the Fantastic Four in the late 1970s because I had a cousin who read them, so I read one of them when I was over his house. It was absolutely the worst sort of issue to start with because it must have been the 2nd or 3rd part of an ongoing story. I remember that it had Tigra, Thundra, the Impossible Man, a duplicate/evil Reed, and all the typical 70's FF shenanigans that made these guys Marvel's First Family at the time. Like you yourself, I had known of them from their cartoon so I had the basic idea of who they were, but that story was just off-the-walls fun, complicated and zany. It got me hooked, and I read both that and the Thing's 2-in-1 team-up book religiously for the next two decades.
For me, one of the strangest jumping-on points was the two-issue story-arc in Adventure Comics #350 and 351, which were reprinted together in a comic I read as a kid. This is a Legion of Super-Heroes story. I had some knowledge of the Legion, but mostly as "Superboy and some other people that I don't know very well". But this story made me a Legion fan for life (well, for as long as that version of the Legion existed anyway). This is crazy story that starts with Superboy and Supergirl getting kicked out of the Legion. Along the way, the story involves almost everyone and everything, including the Legion of Substitute Heroes and the Legion of Super-Pets, ending with a new status quo for a variety of characters (mostly undoing some changes that had happened to them). I had never met most of the characters in this story before, but this crazy mish-mash somehow worked. It thrilled and excited me to see how huge and interesting the world of the Legion of Super-Heroes really was.
I weirdly tend to jump in and out of books. What draws me in is a particular storyline, or even more odd...the cover
I first saw the FF in the 90s cartoon and really liked them, particularly Johnny. Fast forward a lot of years and I finally got to picking up an FF book. It was their run in the Ultimate universe. I’m pretty sure this was after Ultimatum had already wrapped so I just binged the whole thing. I really like it because it felt like a true jumping on point for me (even though I was pretty familiar with the team from other mediums)
I think the Hickman run had more emotional resonance with me, but I really loved this run too, and I think for a lot of the same reasons. Robinson honored the tradition of family, created interesting stories, and made it feel like it mattered even though he knew he was on the title for a short time. As flawed as this run may be, the one thing it excelled at was being true to the core of the Fantastic Four. He did much the same thing in his very short stint on the Heroes Reborn title.
My favorite panel of all time is from To Kill A Legend from Detective 500 by Alan Brennert.
The whole premise is that our Bruce Wayne as Batman saves the Waynes of another dimension. The young Bruce Wayne became driven not by loss and anger but by “awe and mystery and gratitude”.
Alan Brennert in one story did more to 'fix' the Batman mythos than 30+ years of decent writers.
I think even if you could argue in an individual case that the love triangle thing is fun, as a whole I think it's the sort of thing actively hurting comics today, it's a crutch for cheap drama. And that's regardless of which triangle we're talking about. A man who neglects his family needs to work on that, a woman who has active attraction for another man and keeps it alive doesn't get a pass.
This resonates with me, since one of the first comic books that I bought with my own money and that I picked out, was a Gen13 and Fantastic Four cross over comic. I liked the art and it made me like the Fantastic Four even if I never ended up buying a lot of comics.^^;
I looked it up, and it was " Gen 13 / Fantastic Four #1" that I bought.^^
I started reading comics when I was in 1st grade, some many decades ago.
There was no real jumping on point for me. I just read whatever caught my on the spinner rack. Or I sought out characters I'd seen on tv or cartoons or movies.
After awhile I picked up the Marvel Origins books from Fireside, or the Treasury Editions, or the odd digest that was out. Though, over all, it was just realizing that many of the stories were somewhat serialized and getting the next issue and the next issue and the next issue, and putting all the information together.
Later still, it was going to the burgeoning comic book stores and picking up back issues to fill in the holes. Which has led to me having a small collection that is now approaching 11,000 books.
And, like yourself, Sasha, there are some stories and some issues and some panels that have stayed with me, and I absolutely love. One of my favorites being from Astonishing X-Men #1, where Cyclops is in bed with Emma Frost and awakens to find Wolverine crouched on the foot board who asks "Which stage of grieving is this?"
I read a lot more comics as a little kid at the library in the early 2000s. Like there are big events I vaguely remember but I primarily read X-Men, Storm, Teen Titans an Starfire specific comics. However, when I wanted to follow along I would get lost in the companion titles and lose what I was reading about so, I fell off. I would love to go back to those titles and find out who the artists were and who wrote said stories. Honestly this is why I appreciate channels such as yours because I still love comics I just get so lost trying to read them. So, having a way to get the gist and still go read them is so helpful.
I'm one of those older adults who loved comics and read various iterations of them through the years, but also drifted away from them for a long time and returned. My comeback was a small Archie's digest. I remembered how much I loved comics and got back into them. My first major run was the entire hardbound collection of Warren's Vampirella. It took two years to complete the collection because it was pricey, but it was also worth it. I've expanded vastly since and am glad to have returned. Like superheroes, this is my new run - the new age of me.
I grew up reading comic books. I learned to read with Amazing Spider-Man 232, and have the nearly completely worn out comic on my wall in a case.
My dad was a huge FF fan, and I got his early comics, so my youth was spent with Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. There's something wonderful about picking up an issue of FF and knowing the first family still endures to this day.
The phrase "Jumping on point." Must be something different to each different person.
I´ve ALWAYS been a DC guy. That´s because, while growing up, that´s all there was. Re-runs of Superfriends, re-runs of the Batman Adam West, re-runs of Wonder Woman TV, the Batman movies...and then, all the animated stuff till now.
However, I never decided to start reading comics until I was an adult. And that was because of the New 52. If I´ve asked where to start back then I don´t think I had been able to do so. More so, because I like to start from #1. And even while New 52 was on I didn´t want to read old stuff. Not because I knew it couldn´t be good but it wouldn´t be relevant. Of course, now is different.
Even before starting reading casually I did get to buy and read some complete stories. Kingdom Come, Justice, Grant Morrison´s JLA, Superman: Emperor Joker...and while some were particulary great (Justice became one of my favorite comics and I even had dreams of JLA because of how good it was) I wouldn´t have decided to start reading anything.
As with Sasha, I knew of so much hate towards the New 52 but I didn´t feel that way. Mainly because I got to read all the best stuff: Aquaman, Wonder Woman, Justice League...and so on. I didn´t get the chance to read any of the most hated titles because they didnt interest me. In fact, the only one title I could see how bad it could have been was Green Arrow.
I was NEVER interested in Green Arrow. I didn´t like the character when I first met him in the JL TV show. I learned to really like him through ARROW. And I wanted to give him a chance. In Spain (where I am) they didn´t want to publish it...for a reason. As I read online how terrible it was. They still decided to publish with few of the most maligned run until the creative team was changed. And, wao, it WAS bad. But, as said, I didn´t enocunter any of it. All the comics were great. My favorites were Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Justice League...Green Lantern as well of course (being my favorite character) but his story continued Pre-New 52.
As well, as taking advice of AMAZING titles... I´d even argue that. I´ve always read how incredible The Killing Joke was. A friend that had it let me read it and left me underwhelmed. And I wouldn´t have known what to do with Watchmen. I particulary didn´t like the movie (as great as it is and owining it). It was until years being reading comics when Doomsday Clock happened that I decided to read that. I really liked it so I decided to read Watchmen. I finally did (up until very recently) I now I can appreciate it...while still being there things that I fiind tough to read. And this is me now understanding and enjoying it. Had I bought it in the New 52 days or prior wouldn´t have liked it.
However, one risk I did take during the New 52 was Sandman. I started reading it while the New 52 started and I did like it. A lot. And it amazed me because it was my first adult comic with an "old style of art" that would have normally threw me off. Today I think it does benefits it.
...and that´s my story.
PS
Wanted to add that while Justice League was very good. It got better and better as it went on...the comics I couldn´t wait for and had me hooked were Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Green Lantern.
...Batman/Detective Comics, I didn´t start to get it until later on. Not because I didn´t want to but because of monetary issues. And because I already had read Batman comics. However, a friend let me read some the issues and I knew I had to get it because, as usual, Batman comics are great.
On the other hand I wasn´t sure if I wanted to read Flash or Aquaman. Flash I´ve never loved. Enjoy but that´s it. While Aquaman I always found interesting. I asked online about the the 2 and was told their styles. That made me choose Aquaman. Later on, that same friend, let me read his Flash comics and I knew I did the right choice.
Fantastically thought out Perspective of Jumping In too Comics 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾 Brilliantly showcasing one of Your Experience & what hooked You, & Also Luv’d Your Perspective on It doesn’t matter what others opinions are on something You Like ( something the social media Generation needs to Learn IMO) …The FF stuff is Just Extra, Your Overall Perspective is what makes this Enlightening…Keep Up The Outstanding Work Sasha ( Oh & In Matching The FF Uniforms Look “ You Look Fantastic) 🖖🏾
“So many thoughts!!!”
I beg you to check out James Robinson’s Jack Knight, Starman-the best use of canon and continuity ever. Should be studied.
Also, Byrnes run on FF was the bomb. Best of the best.
"Bomb"?
I have been reading Daredevil through the year and I did so because of the Netflix series and while I enjoyed it the panel that really stuck with me was from a small collection from the 80s where Matt was sitting off by himself on a water tower thinking about how he was getting older and running a hand into his hair and it was just so human that even months later and many runs later I still think about it.
God it’s so refreshing to here your neutral positivity. How this can be bad but good to someone else. With all the one sided ness of hate or love for things lately it’s just super nice to hear your opinion and logical thinking
My jumping on point was digitally reading 200 issues of Spawn then slowly collecting the original run of New Mutants.
I was quite lost you see.
Robinson is a great writer. He did the Starman run with Jack knight. Some of the best legacy writing there is.
Casually comics I love your videos I am your number one fan I’m a fan of the channel. I also follow you on Twitter and Instagram.❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
After struggling to jump into comics several times, I was only able to jump in with the New 52. As a fan now, I realize what a questionable decision erasing decades of history was, but at the same time, it was the only way I was able to jump on. I had tried picking up various collections, and they were always in the middle of things and depending heavily on past history. I just couldn't get in!
The New 52 got me into comics, and I started with the Flash, and then I started picking up both new and old comics that had characters I'd remembered liking in the old JLU show, such as Captain Atom and Booster Gold. This led me back to the old JLI, and it really helped.
As far as Marvel, the Young time-traveling X-men Marvel Now! Was the only thing that got me in, since I knew the original set but so much had happened, I found it difficult to jump in. I really enjoyed that run for a while (eventually, it got a bit old, but I was glad that it concluded and they went back.) So, reboots aren't all bad? All's well that ends well?
I haven't read FF #1 from that era, but you make it sound interesting. I like your thoughts and humor! I started out with kiddy comics, but later I would just read whatever my older brother read. The first FF I remember reading is #186 (1977), which I still have. Sometime around then Marvel published through Pocket Books a reprint of the first six or so issues bound in a tiny paperback format. It was harder to appreciate the art, but you could grab hold of the story. That was a much-appreciated early introduction to the beginning of the lore for me.
What an interesting experience to hear your entry point to a series that's now one of your favorites. Learning about the panels that really got to you and the why was really entertaining and I enjoyed it so much. Thanks for sharing your trip down memory lane.
The first issue of Cassandra Cain's Batgirl run I brought was issue #25, where she fought Lady Shiva, I enjoyed it and managed to get all the back issues the following week.
I still remember my first superhero comic - Rai and the Future Force #9. Jumps in the middle of a story, introducing a bunch of characters (several of whom die in the episode) and left me with a profound sense of "what the heck was that!". Unfortunately, I never found the next (or preceding) issue - my local comic shop wasn't helpful, and this was pre-Google, so I ended up going back to Sonic comics and never really got back to it. If I had been able to find the other issues, I probably would have stuck with it, but with all the barriers to entry (especially money - $5 allowances didn't go far in 1993!). Most of my early comic experiences were like that - single issues that I would come across at school or sometimes in the trash. I remember a Howard the Duck comic, and a Catwoman issue where she's patrolling Gotham while Batman was...away? Dead? Something - I just thought Catwoman was cool - but I could never follow a story for more than a single issue.
When I went back to superhero comics in college, I found that I didn't need an onboarding story, but if I find a character or team I like, I do prefer to go back to the beginning and start from there. Started both Ghost Rider and Wonder Woman from the omnibus reprints because I just like seeing things evolve.
Sometimes I forget people around my age are married and/or parents now, and things like comics and games land differently from that perspective. I think I miss a lot of nuance when it comes to married couples like Reed and Sue (and Lois and Clark). Little details that wouldn't stand out to me at first if at all, but would floor me if I could relate.
The Eternals were kind of my version of this. When it started leaking that the movie was coming all heard was people complaining and calling them laim and I just wanted wanted to know what they even were. So I read the new comic and felt in love with it, saw the film and also loved it and now I got an Eternals themed crossover event and a preorder of that omnibus of 70s and 80s runs that's coming.
Honestly, I agree so much with the sentiment that any comic can be someone's first. The biggest point of entry for me was when I found a second hand book shop that had boxes of loose slightly dog-eared comics for 20p each. They weren't in any order and the chances of finding a 1st issue or sequential run were almost nil (though I did find The Man Called Nova #1 and I still have it). I would save as much of my school lunch money as possible without starving myself and then at the weekend I would buy as many comics as I could afford, based mainly off which covers looked interesting. It got me into a lot of different series. I became particularly enamoured with The New Mutants and Nova/The New Warriors. The Internet wasn't widely available at the time but it set me off on the journey of finding out as much as I could about these fictional universes. And by the time I actually had some spending power, I had a solid idea of where I wanted it to go. 20+ years laters I'm an adult with a job, a missus, a mortgage, and a pull list, and comics still have the power to get me excited like no other medium. Wish they were still that cheap though 😂
That’s always the problem with long form storytelling it’s always hard to get bring new people in
I jumped on FF half way through hickman's run but the reason i fell in love with FF was pretty much the same. The realness of the relationship and family dynamic, especially Reed not being a perfect husband and father.
As a guy who has never and will never experience love, I really like your take. Yet, I think there is a little variant you might also appreciate. Sort of a parallel interpretation.
He isn't saying he is trying he is simply but meaningfully appealing to the kind person she is when not so distraught. He is pulling at her true self to come out and hear him with an open mind rather than pain. Its still a choice she is making.
People are quick to assume what someone means and even if they know better than can hold onto that hot take despite evidence or personal knowledge to the contrary.
It is hard to be better than that sometimes.
What makes you so sure about never experiencing love
@@Galvatronover there are a few reasons, to pick one.. I dont have the qualities to a gain a woman's attention. Neither do I have the audacity or confidence to disturb their peace meaningfully for selfish reasons and being asking them for their time. Even were I to do so, the experience needed to impress or entertain is something I lack..
Sometimes I think self termination is more likely than dating
Cool name btw
13:00
This is genuinely such good advice that at least for myself has been difficult to put into practice lol, it can be hard to not take things personally or not let what others say affect me even for things that are kinda simple in the bigger picture like a favourite hobby. Maybe it's something about sharing these communities with strangers and how much the community aspect is involved with my engagement altogether, I wouldn't be into comics like I am if it wasn't for the guidance of online forums, TH-camrs, and communities all sharing information.
You folks in Sasha's comments are awesome but circles change everywhere you go online, I need to brainstorm ways of filtering through affectations from people who i really should not concern myself with and managing my own anxieties about being accepted when all I'm trying to do is take part in a hobby that I really enjoy.
That's how I got started with new 52 and the dc wiki page and just my excitement for the story I was reading
This video really shows Sasha's viewpoint on comics and the world, and why I like this channel so much.
I'm a sucker for a good jumping on point, like a new no. 1, a new creative team or a universal reboot. I think the only time I've jumped in in the middle was when I got back into American comics in 2020 after an absence of several years. I started with the Batman Joker War arc, even though I didn't understand the context that had led up to it.
Actually, technically I got into comics in the first place by jumping in the middle. My Mum bought me a Phantom comic to read on a road trip and it got me hooked. Thankfully, it was the 70th anniversary special, so it included a lot of supplemental information that helped me get caught up.
Thank you for this video. I know several people who need to hear this kind of thing. They want to get into comics, but they're paralyzed by the WHERE DO I START syndrome.
Three favorite jumping on points:
Sleepwalker #1: The very first time I started reading a superhero comic from the very beginning. I love the characters and semi-lament/semi-take pride in it being a character that even heavy super hero nerds haven't always heard.
Avengers Disassembled/New Avengers: I never gave much've a shit about the JLA or The Avengers in my first decade and a half of comics reading. This changed when Ultimate Spidey Scribe Brian Michael Bendis and/or his evil twin Michael Brian Bendat took over and I decided to check it out after trying to read House of M and was too lost. I'd heard about and read synopsises of the Avengers key story arcs, but this was the first I really wanted to take a look at.
Invincible #1: In a way, this is kind of like how you describe that FF#1, because it feels like a jumping on point for a comics universe/series that has been around for decades, even though we're only seeing it now. It feels like there's another universe where Omni-Man has been steadily published since the 1960s and is considered "The only Superman wannabe who's ever given the OG Man of Steel a real challenge, much less a run for his money."
Heck, it almost feels like Jonathan Kent a.k.a. Superman Son of Kal-El is stuck under the shadow of Mark Grayson a.k.a. Invincible, because people would surely compare the two a lot at this point.
I have this complete run and I haven’t read it since it first happened. Thanks for reminding me about it. I should reread it. The best place to jump in any Western comic in my opinion is where ever you want. If you can start at an issue #1 great start there. Jumping in in the middle of a story is part of the fun and hunting down back issues to see what was happening makes it more fun.
When you’re a comic company’s first superhero family, you build up a lifetime of complexity, and I find that cool that that’s reflected in the Fantastic Four
The first daredevil comic I read was a collection of Daredevil 2011 and I was incredibly confused but I read the whole thing and liked it. The Christmas sweater is iconic
Small world. This actually was my first Fantastic Four reading as well.
I got it on sale for $1.50 when my local Hastings was having an out of business sale and it was my first Marvel book after years of DC. Between the red costume and the cheap price, I figure why not. I have no regrets
10:08 Insert Community meme
My first FF comic was actually the beginning of the Slott run, I got into reading comics in like 2019 so the amount of FF material was obviously limited and I actually had the same reaction everyone hates this but I like it. When COVID hit and they had a print gap, I went back to read everything and found not only Byrne's (which is one of my favorites and also has the omnibus) but discovered my love O'Neil's Iron Man run, which led me down the rabbit hole of his work at DC.
Jumping on points is great, but like you don't know what's going on in the story just yet like everyone who has been reading comics for years, and part of being a comics fan is reading something, going huh that was weird and then looking up why it makes sense and talking with other comics fan who may have a context like why something happened that way based on interviews they read.
Talking about this run, they need a collected edition!
Walt Simonson's Thor run, the issue where he got rid of the Donald Blake alter ego. I'd been an occasional reader of Thor comics over the years but he was never a favorite or must but. That issue with the banishment of Donald Blake- such an integral part of the character- floored me. I HAD to buy it to see what was going on and became instantly hooked. Considering that we also got Thorg and Beta Ray Bill out of that run, as well as a re-imagined Loki, and man, did that make me a huge fan of old 'Goldilocks' Thor.
Just finished reading this run. It's an interesting unfortunately mostly forgotten run that was surprisingly pretty fun for me.
I need a really fun issue or a character focused story for my jumping on point. The one I can remember is the Hulk. I'd read a few big books that he'd been in but never much else. I was reading issues digitally and somehow came across hulk issue 291 with a sad General Thunderbolt Ross holding a gun to his head which shocked me because that's not what is expected for a superhero comic. The inside story has Thunderbolt Ross recounting his classic adventures trying to catch the hulk and how his obsession ruined his relationships and left him alone. That issue took the one note angry army general Ross always was portrayed him as and really gave him some depth for me. So I've read a lot of hulk stories around that issue.
The "Thing vs Hulk" story I remember was a short run parody series of comic books that had "The Inedible Bulk vs The Ever Loving Thung". There were other crossovers as well, but that is the issue I remember the best. This was in either the late 1960s or early 1970s, I'm pretty sure.
Heh. My "jumping-on" points for various Marvel comics (Note: These are ALL pre-internet, pre-stores devoted exclusively to comics, pre-direct sales (where comics were sold at drugstores, convenience stores, etc, and the risk of missing an issue was all too real!), and pre the acceptance that comics and comics-related media have today!):
CAPTAIN AMERICA: My favorite Marvel hero! The first issue I picked up, the story is about how The Falcon...Cap's partner, his co-star, the guy whose name is on the cover too!....is a pawn, a plant, a sleeper agent of The Red Skull! The phrase didn't exist in 1975, but WTF?!?
FANTASTIC FOUR: The FF returned to "their" Earth from Counter-Earth, smack into the Marvel Comics's NYC offices, and the Bullpen circa 1976!! Gorgeous art by George Perez.
The Amazing Spider-Man: First page: Peter Parker sitting on a stoop while his dead ex-girlfriend, who's now strangely alive, acts confused, and a ghostly image of Spider-Man taunts Peter!!. First. Page.
Incredible Hulk: The Hulk was shrunk down to sub-atomic size and ended up on an alien planet where he had Bruce Banner's intellect, was there before and was hailed a s a hero, and, oh yes, had a hot babe girlfriend!!
The Avengers: The history of the team is recapped while the membership changes. Actually, that was a pretty good "jumping-on" point. Well, until Wonder Man, a hero was said to have died years ago, earlier in the issue, is shipped to Avengers Mansion in a big crate which he busts out of, and accuses the red and green guy "stole [his] mind"!!
X-Men (They weren't *officially* Uncanny X-Men yet!): The X-Men's leader is having dreams of star wars (Right when anticipation of the upcoming movie was building!). There's a page of a funny Star Trek pastiche drawn by Dave Cockrum. But otherwise, Fire-Lord? Eric The Red?? Huh??
And those are the major ones. I waited until issue 100 to start reading Iron Man, 50 to start reading Defenders (the *finale* of a three-issue arc featuring a Nick Fury LMD! Boy, was *that* confusing!!). But there you have it!! Like you, I had varying degrees of passing familiarity with Marvel having been around the comics...and "animated" series....in the '60s and before-I-started-seriously-reading-and-collecting early '70s. But still...!!
I'm so glad that you covered this comic. I remember comic readers having fairly harsh reactions to this series as well. The retailer I would visit at the time went as far as to say he thought this run was an assassination attempt on the FF by Marvel because Disney did not own the rights to those characters. Which makes no sense to me at all! The idea being they would destroy the original FF and replace them with other characters?? I have to wonder if this was internet gossip that was going around or just something this one fellow concocted. But I always wanted to read these books but never got around to it. I will have to seek them out.
I got into comics via X-Men comics smack in the middle of the Mutant Massacre, particularly the issue where Colossus kills Riptide. I think it was #211. I was like 10 years old and though I was a little lost as to the plot I absolutely fell in love with the characters and I was hooked.
So I've never understood the idea that every comic could be someone's first meant that readers need to be handheld and spoon fed.
All I needed to know from my first comic was there's a bunch of bad people killing a bunch of innocent people and there's a bunch of cool people with powers throwing themselves into harm's way to stop them.
I think a bigger problem is that these days comics often lack focus, so you can go multiple issues in some series without really getting a good idea of what the conflict is or what the stakes are...and most importantly, why the reader should care.
Very cool video; fun to hear someone's jumping on point for something that they now love. Can't recall any of my own; every character I'm a major fan of seems to have just been already in the air by and at least recognizable to me by the time I first read, listened to or watched them. The rest that I recall are just second-tier by comparison. But, if it means anything, I recall the year I became a fan of Flipper. Staying at my grandmother's (after school?) and her making some little snack and letting me eat in front of the (big furniture) TV set and Flipper reruns being the only thing on. Never even heard of him, I don't think. But the second I heard the theme-song I was hooked. I couldn't be budged from in front of it (except to clean my plate, so I always left some on it and picked at it so I didn't have to). As a major Aquaman and Lassie fan, it struck the perfect cord. I think one thing that got me was not a single kid in school seemed to have a clue who he was or what I was on about.
My first comic was a collection of updated origins for Ant-man & the Wasp, Vision and Luke Cage when I was 9 (before I knew there were superheroes other than Batman from the Brave & the Bold TV series). The Luke Cage origin was the first time I saw a character who had the anger I felt unable to control at the time who wasn't the bad guy and despite being a very different story Vision's origin showed a redemption that after being in multiple fights at school I felt I needed. I reread that book until half the pages fell out and the panels were seared into my mind yet I have absolutely no idea who created them.
I have consistently struggled to get into comics, because most of the time I pick something up, stick with it a few issues, and get sick of feeling lost. I also have the issue of having… let’s say finicky aesthetic tastes. There are lots of times I’ve asked where a good place to start for something is, looked up the resulting recs, and just been *completely* turned off by the art style. There’s also the problem where I can’t read WIP thanks to my ADHD; if there’s a break of more than a week between installments of the story, object impermanence means I’m *way* more likely to forget I was trying to keep up with it at all, let alone checking back in. And there’s nothing more aggravating than trying to read a full storyline, and having whole chunks of it just be missing, or cost +$50 just to find out what happens next.
All that said, I have spent the last year or two buckling down and really working to dig in again, and I have been having fun. I do love expansive lore, complex characters, and works that aren’t afraid of their own silliness. It’s just that all adds up to an ocean of content, which is intimidating in its own right even without the first 30ft or so being ice-cold when I try to wade in. I haven’t found the riptide to yank me fully out to sea, but I am deep enough that I’m acclimatizing to the temperature, if that makes sense. I get what other people love about it, and getting out sounds more uncomfortable than going deeper at this point.
…And if that sounds ominous, it’s probably because I’m reading in chronological order, and I’ve just started the 90s. Wish me luck.
I do get your point regarding the art style. I´d argue that the art is the most important part of the comic. It is what your eyes first encounter. You can have the most amazing story in the world but if you don´t like the art...what´s the point? On the other hand, the story can be mediocre or even bad but what you end up remembering is the drawing. That´s why is so important that both aspects are equal.
I´ve been lucky enough where most of the time the art is to my liking in all of the comics I read. That being said, there have been the cases where the art is just plain awful because either the artist was changed for whatever reason or they did it on purpose because of the story and it was rough. In fact, it was so much to my dislike that either the story was on par or maybe it was even good but I just couldn´t get through the art.
I started owing you because of that Starman hardcover sitting on your shelf
Damn! This was an unusual video for the channel but honestly a very welcome one that deals with issues of fandom rarely spoken of... and that is the seemingly unlikeable stuff that some of us just love!
For me... I love the Judge Dredd (1995) movie... could watch it everyday, I think it's perfect! Also love the most recent film (at time of writing lol) but nothing gets me happier than Sylvester Stallone screaming "I AM THE LAW!"... and Armad Assante's excellent follow up monologue.... totally about to watch it again for a millionth time!
My current comic book introduction is going to the antique store across from my home and grabbing any dollar comic that's cover appeals to me and then if I like it, maybe I'll search for the full run. I don't look into people's opinions on the comics because I don't want to go into it with an opinion in mind
The very first Star Wars book I read (legends now, I guess) was the third part of a series set something like 15 years after Return of the Jedi was set. Showdown at Centerpoint. I had no idea what was going on, was shocked that Hahn and Leia had not one, but THREE kids at the time, Hahn had an evil cousin bouncing around, and Luke had already trained a group of new Jedi somewhere... it was insane! But I loved it. I was hooked, and dove deep into those books. Still have some of them 20 years later, including that trilogy!
My jumping on point for my high school return to comics was Batman/Detective Comics (not sure the numbers, but in the waning pre-Crisis days) where and Robin named Jason Todd was in the aftermath of some odd character named Nocturnal trying to steal him. Vicki Vale and Julia Remarque, daughter of Alfred and Mademoiselle Marie (who I remembered well, along with Sgt. Rock, the Unknown Soldier, and the Haunted Tank) are important support characters, and it was great! And pre-internet. Editor's notes are awesome, and I'm glad a young whippersnapper appreciates them.
That Fantastic Four cartoon was pretty good, and if you haven't read X-Men vs. Fantastic Four, but love Reed/Sue moments, check it out!