I'm very familiar with both marvel and DC universes but i've read very few comics. I've been picking up collected editions and reading those, so far i've read secret wars and the dark knight returns. I have kingdom come on order.

I gravitate towards the cosmic side of marvel and elseworlds/batman/green lantern. I'm interested in reading blackest night but I don't know where to start.

So what would you guys recommend I check out?

Check the two stickied threads at the top of this forum for Indy and DC. Darth's Marvel thread seems to have been lost, but given your tastes for Cosmic Marvel:

Annihilation
Annihilation Conquest
War of Kings
Realm of Kings
Thanos Imperative
Nova
Guardians of the Galaxy vol II (the recent run)

Basically all of the Abnett and Lanning cosmic stuff from the last, oh, 5 or 6 years or so. All of it is amazing, from cover to cover. Nova quickly become one of my favorite Marvel books of all time.

Also, if you like Cosmic related goodness try:

Walter Simonson: Thor Essentials 1-3 - Probably the best Thor ever done. Really epic in scale, with loads of fight scenes and total craziness tossed in (Thor turning into a frog, or M16 wielding Vikings, sounds crazy but massive fun to read, as is the fact that Simonson helped resurrect a few nods to Superman for Thor, as Stan Lee had always intended Thor as Superman's equal and Marvel equivalent)

Thor: Blood Oath - another good Thor story with the Warriors Three in tow

Avengers Vol III - the Busiek and Perez run. It starts of with the twilight sword reshaping reality and moves on to other major movers and shakers throwing down against one of the most powerful Avengers line ups of all time

Captain America: Rebirth and/or Captain America vol III up through I think issue 20 something - both are pretty much the definition of how much kiester Cap kicks, and pits him against the Red Skull and the Cosmic Cube. vol III sees various Skull plots to break Cap ultimately fail, including a sci-fi/cosmic jaunt vs Korvac. Waid and Garney are still the best Cap team of all time, even including Brubaker and Epting

Secret Wars - the original multi character team-up/battle royale. This took all of Marvel's biggest name heros and villains and tossed them into a crazy battle royal. Dr. Doom shines, Spider-man single handed thrashes the X-men, Cap proves why he is the 'leader' of the Marvel Universe, and the villains just flat wreck house

Thunderbolts vol II - This doesn't start out especially cosmic, but as it progressed it does. The Grandmaster (one of Marvel's cosmic entities) and Baron Zemo slug it out on the proverbial cosmic chess board for the fate of Earth. Fantastic run, and again a Kurt Busiek storyline

Those are some good Marvel ones given your noted preference.

For a good Elseworlds - Superman Red Son by Mark Millar
For good Marvel Cosmic from the 80's - Jim Starlin's Thanos Quest & Infinity Gauntlet
For Blackest Night, start with Green Lantern Rebirth by Geoff Johns. Then go to the Sinestro Corps War. That'll prep you for Blackest Night for the most part.

I read Annihilation years ago and just recently read Annihilation:Conquest followed by War of Kings. I'm also just about done Guardians of the Galaxy. It was all great stuff and I plan on getting ahold of the rest of Nova (loved his books in War of Kings) and the Cancerverse stuff next. This was all made possible by torrents.

Thanks for the replies!

I looked into all of these titles and they all look awesome. I'm going to hunt ebay for good deals

I hear you can torrent but since I started buying vinyl i feel bad about torrenting stuff

Don't get me wrong I have no respect for people who only read torrents. I got out of comics about 13 years ago and when I started to get back into them about 7 years ago there was no way to get caught up on 6 years of stories. I was only an X-Fan but after reading every book in House of M and Civil War I was hooked on everything Avengers as well. I guarantee you if you only use torrents to get caught up and hooked on books no shop owner will complain

Sometimes it just isn't financially possible to read 6 years worth of epic stories in a few months.

I only used torrents while in college, when there was next-to-nothing of a spending budget to work with and wanted to get back into comics.

Once I got out and fully into the working world, I started getting trades, then singles.

Main thing is to read what you really want, but watch the finances. I want to read so much, but keeping a budget is more important. Also consider the local libraries and borrowing from friends if they're willing. I actually got back into comics because the local library at the university had the trades of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow books by Kevin O'Neil in the "Graphic Novels" section.

Those are both good perspectives on torrenting. I never really thought of it that way. And one guy can only buy so much. I am just bugged by the people who say they are music lovers and have loaded itunes libaries yet have never bought an album, but anyway i think with comics it's totally different

I went to the library and picked up GL:rebirth, t-bolts:justice like lightning, and spider man noir. I tore through all three tonight and go back tomorrow for more.

I want to read more new GL and tbolts for sure

gog,thunderbolts, new avengers, glc, jsa

Teensy-tiny correction: you probably meant Dennis, or Denny, O'Neil.

Kevin O'Neil, to the best of my knowledge, has never worked on Green Lantern comics. He's the artist from Marshal Law and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

That's what I meant.

Denny O'Neil. with art by Neal adams.

Kevin O'Neill did do some artwork on GL back in the 80's, most notably the GL Corps Tygerz story written by Alan Moore that inspired the whole War of Light delivered by Geoff Johns over the last few years.

Tygerz was recently collected in this trade, which is a great collection of older GL tales, coming from a fan of more recent stuff.

Stuff written by Jonathan Hickman.

His run on the Fantastic Four/Future Foundation was a lot of fun.

He also wrote Secret Warriors which was really good as well.


I just got through the New 52 Animal Man & Swamp Thing trades and thought they were really interesting.

If you're looking to try indy stuff out, give Invincible a try. There's a good shake-up about every trade.

Also try Chew.

In my opinion, one of the best ongoing series right now is Marvel's Venom. (though ASM is a close second)
Since DC relaunched everything, I have found only the Batman comics (regular, DK, or Detective) to be continually promising each week.

Personally, and I am a huge X-Men fan, I would just avoid anything x-men right now. Pretty big mess altogether with everything split. (uncanny would be your best bet if you like x-men though)

You can never really go wrong with your big names though like iron man or the fantastic four. If you like a superhero start there and expand. I did that as a huge wolverine and spider-man fan and have found my likes from there.

This is of course just some modern stuff that you could start getting issues of today. back issues and trades can get you caught up quickly.

It's been a few weeks and I've had a chance to read a good amount of books.

My library has a good selection, I read:

GL- rebirth, agent orange, secret origin, and a GL corps one

JSA- New Age, Thy kingdom come v.1

Kingdom come

Spiderman Noir

Astonishing x-men V1-V4

Thor:Mighty avenger V1 and V2

Batman war games act one and two

Thunderbolts justice like lightning

And i just checked out Superman Man of Steel V1-V6 and invincible iron man V1-V4

I'm sorta hooked on DC books lately, but the marvel selection there isn't the greatest, the volumes are often mismatched (they'll have v's 3,6,9,12,15) and I wont read out of order or skip around, it's just not for me.

Reading the comics definitely makes clix more fun. It's great to have a character and then you find it in a book, "ohhh so that's who that is!"

Regarding recommendations, I think going through back issues and attempting to pick up every issue of Avengers Academy would turn out to be a very worthwhile endeavor.

Also:
Thanks, PlotDeviceLad. That is new info for me. I may have to track down that trade you mentioned.