Hi everyone! I've recently gotten interested in comic books (I played Heroclix for years knowing nothing about the characters) and I've found one of my favorite series is the Marvel Essentials omnibuses. They are black and white reprints of comics from the 1960s-1980s.

They're quite cool, and there seem to be tons of them for just about every series Marvel ever made. I got five at a used book store and have been reading through Fantastic Four #1, and it's pretty amazing.

Is anyone else into the Essentials series? Are there any particularly good/bad volumes anyone can recommend?

I'm a big booster of the Essential books. They're an excellent deal, and much of the art looks is surprisingly attractive sans color. They're inexpensive ways to catch up on/revisit chunks of Marvel's history. (Much the same thing's to be said about the DC line of Showcase Presents trades.)

It's especially good for getting to catch up on Marvel's Silver Age -- getting to see the first decade or so of Avengers, Fantastic Four, etc. I've even bought some of them despite having all of the originals. It's a very handy, casual way to access those stories and loan them around -- face it, I don't care how well I know someone, I'm not going to loan a copy of Amazing Spider-man #13, Fantastic Four #18, etc., but the first Essentials volume of each series? Sure!

I don't mean this as an attack, so please don't read it as such...

I've never been able to understand how people who don't read (or enjoy) comics can play and enjoy Heroclix. The characters are so integral to the game - at least, for me - and I just don't get it, but there are a surprising number of people who say that. I just always find that intriguing.

Cattmoe...

I'm with you - both in terms of not wanting to come off as jerky, and on the comics comment. I don't watch 'Lost', so I doubt I'd play a game (even a good strategy game) based on the show. It similarly intrigues me that someone would play clix JUST for the strategy.

That's just me, though. (well, and Cattmoe). The more people that DO play it, comics fans or not, I'm happy

tomb of dracula is a great essential book. ive enjoyed that and the other monsters like zombie and werewolf by night that you just dont get to see very often if at all anymore.

I'm only in Heroclix because I've been a comics fan for so long.

That said, I've been happy to see that Heroclix have become an entry or re-entry point for some people to the world of comics. Some of the better venue experiences I've had have been when players asked questions about various characters they were unfamiliar with - usually, before very long, there ends up being several people getting involved in tossing in their own recollections of favorite stories/scenes involving some of the characters.

The only ones who really bother me are people who come at it as if it were just another game, with no interest in finding out about the characters, reducing it all to stats, mechanics and points. It can suck much of the fun out of a game.

I think both the Essentials from Marvel and Showcase from DC are great books.

As stated earlier it is great to see the old art without color. It makes it look that much better.

For the Essentials some of the first ones I purchased was SuperViilian Team Up, Captain Marvel and Killraven.

Now for the Showcase books my first ones were both Haunted Tank, Unknown Soldier, Hex, Batman and the Outsiders. And on next payday I will probably get the Travis Morgan, Warlord Showcase.

So for both the Essentials and the Showcase books, I think they were great ideas and I can not wait to see what others they do. There is sooo many back stories I would love to have just to read.

Also these books are great if say you have a particular run of a book and those books are sealed and boarded and what not. But you want to read that story again because you enjoyed it soo much. Now with these books you can read your fave stories and not mess up your highly sought after and treasured individual books.

Oh yeah and to go with what others have said. I have two players who got into clix and did not know any of the characters except for the more popular ones. But now they are some what getting into comics. One of them will go to the public library and sit down and read graphic novels there to read about the figures and who and what they are.

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

I got into Heroclix because I was a huge Mage Knight fan, but no one in the area wanted to play. One of my best friends at the time, though was a huge comic book fan, and heard about Heroclix. He wanted to play for the superheroes, I wanted to play for the game, and things worked out well. I also picked up a lot of the lore by chatting with him (though he left me completely confused by failing to mention that comics universes had multiple continuities, so I thought he was just making stuff up at times when characters died in multiple ways).

I also used to make my own theme teams based on how figures looked. A favorite was Silver Samurai plus a dozen or so Hand Ninjas.

I've tried most clix games, just because I like the mechanics and style. I play Halo Actionclix, but I know nothing about Halo; I just like the game mechanics.

Apologies for the long-winded explanation. It really is an interesting thing, and I would never have picked the game up if it hadn't been my only CMG option that I could get other players for.

Now, though, I'm having a great time with the comics. My favorite thing I've read in the essentials books thus far is the issue where Doctor Doom holds Stan Lee and Jack Kirby hostage and makes them help him in his plot against the Fantastic Four. The fact that the authors were willing to do something like that, especially in a relatively young magazine, is quite impressive.

I reread a LOT of what came after Giant Sized X-men #1 through the Essentials line. I got the Omnibus as a Birthday gift years ago, and the local library provided the subsequent issues in the Essentials format.

All these years later, you can see why the X-Men became so popular by reading those issues.

I saw one of the funniest things in the first Iron Man Essentials volume, Iron Man is at a carnival and beats the villain, a bystander tells him that he is scary looking so he should colour his armor (he was still gray at the time) so in the next panel Tony is monologueing about the new gold colour of his armour. The armour is exactly the same and the reference to colour is lost in black and white, but I still really like the books. The art often comes across nice w/out the inking and colouring.