As I said in the rep I just gave you, next time, bring pizza and strippers. Just make sure Darth's not here.

I'd recommend reading the Inhumans miniseries (Marvel Knights). Actually a lot of the Marvel Knights stuff is pretty cool, Black Panther for example. Age of Apocalypse is worth reading as well, but it might be confusing for a noob.

and lets not forget that BP and his wife are now in the Zombie universe.

Grant Morrison's New X-Men is a great story for beginners. It's a quick read and it really sets the stage for where the X-books are now.

New Mutants vol. 2 does a wonderful job of introducing fun characters that are very easy to relate to.

She-Hulk vol. 1 is hilarious if you like tongue in cheek humor and big green women.

NextWave is probably the craziest action packed humor book that has nothing to do with anything.

Marvels is a beautiful series that introduces you to the beginning of the silver age of Marvel. It touches on historic moments and covers all the major players.

Runaways is a great beginners book.

Exiles, even though it deals with alternate realities, is an awesome beginners book. Judd Winick was an amazing writer on this book and the first few trades are fantastic.

The first Marvel Knights Inhumans series.

The current volume of Black Panther.

Marvel Knights Daredevil, all of it.

Alias, all of it.

New Universal is really good and it just started.

Planet Hulk, crazy gladiator alien planet, if the last four words together sound good to you, the you should read this story.

Marvel Zombies, great horror story, little continuity.

ok, NOW Black Panther and his wife are in the Zombie-verse.

Spiderman vs Wolverine, shows the origins of Die Spinne costume and unlike most "vs" titles actually provides a real match-up between the title characters. Has just the right levels of humor with a tragic twist at the end.

The Armor Wars saga previews some of the earlier disagreements between Captain America and Ironman.

Infinity Gauntlet series

Avengers Illuminati covers some of the secrets behind major events of the Avengers.

And don't forget, it's in continuty and involves, ever so slightly, the Hobgoblin. Tho we dont' see him, it leads to a big reveal in the reg Spidey books.

I'd say Marvel Comics Presents has the potential to be a good intro-level comic. It's does have stories that go from book to book, but they're pretty self-contained and seem to cover any nessisary backstory pretty well, so it's not too hard to follow along. There's also been at least one totally self contained story in each issue so far, and the last issue finished up one of the three longer stories that had been going on, so the next issue (#5) is probably the best jumping-on point right now for those who don't want to get the previous issues.

As someone that has gotten alot of my friends to read comics, I usually give them Exiles and Runaways to start. Both series are wonderful gates to the MU for very diffrent reasons. Runaways is almost 100% self contained. No need to worry about a ton of history to get into it. just grab and go

Exiles on hte other hand I find is good for those who know a bit about marvel, via cartoons or movies. Since they toouch on practicly every corner of the MU, it's a great way to have new readers see some faces they know in stand alone storeies. Yes, the team itself isn't knows, but every world they go to has many characters that even the most people will know.

I also have to say, alot of new readers seem to like Marvel Zombies, especially when they find out about the Army of Darkness x-over.

When I saw someone had posted here again (after all this time), I thought for sure there'd be someone who would have recommended Amazing Spider-Man.

:speechles

Whoa, I jsut saw the date on your last post. Talk about resurecting a thread from the dead. I hope no one recommends OND/BND. Dispite the thought that it's a freash restart, I think it's a bad place for new readers. Most people have enough of a passing knowledge of Spider-Man from the movies, cartoons, ect, that this wold lead to a lot of questions. This is a real conversation I had with a person that didn't read comics, but knew Spidey from the movies. I showed him a picture of Jackpot

So this is Jackpot from the new Spider-Man issue.
Why do they call her Jackpot? That's a silly super-hero name.
That is Mary-Jane. It's frome her first words seeing Spidey.
Her and Spider-Man are super heroes together? How'd that happen?
Well, Spider-man made a deal with the devil, litterly, to save Aunt Mays life. And it cost their mariage. So they aren't together anymore. In fact, she doesn't know he's Spider-Man.
A deal with the devil? What to keep Aunt May from dying from old age or something?
No she was shot.
Shot? By who?
By an assassin hired by the Kingpin to kill Peter Parker after he unmasked on national TV telling everyone he was Spider-Man. But no one remembers that he did it. They just remember someone did and can't seem to recall who
What? Why not?
Magic.
That's so stupid!

Smart Friend.

Two words- Infinity Gauntlet. Something for everyone and a great, self-contained story.

I would also recommend the Annihilation series. It is very good story. If you get the trade form, it includes character synopses between each chapter, and since it deals mostly with minor characters, there isn't a whole lot of continuity to not know about. I am fairly new to comics in general (less than one year actually) and this was one of the first for me. Plus, it easily leads you into other possible comics, like Nova, Annihilation: Conquest, and GoTG.

This is what I would recommend reading as a new reader starting out that would like to be able to participate in the comics that are coming out today from marvel. This list isn't quite chronological but it will definately help give you a better understanding.

From the Ultimate Universe
Ultimate Spider-man
Ultimates Vol 1 and 2

616 Universe
Runaways
New X-men (Morrison's run)
House of M
New Avengers 1-37
Civil War
Annihilation
Nova
Hulk: Planet Hulk
X-men: Supernovas
Messiah Complex

Once you read these you shouldn't have any problem jumping right into Secret Invasion along with the newer issues of New Avengers.