Marvel Unlimited
One of the many thinks I’ve been geeking out over for the last month or two is the Rachel and Miles X-Plain the X-Men . It is phenomenal! I have basically been rushing through my regular podcasts so that I can marathon it at the end of the week. One of the things that’s come out of it is I now have a Marvel Unlimited subscription.
Marvel Unlimited is basically Netflix for back issues of Marvel Comics. For as little as $9.99 a month you basically get digital access to 90% of the Marvel Comics Catalogue. It’s brilliant! My only complaint at this point is that there are so many comics that it’s hard to pick a place to start.
So what am I planning on reading? Here are my top 5 story arcs I’m excited to read over the next few months:
Obviously the movie was a big success and so one of the things I’m looking forward to is delving deeper into those characters. Plus, as I understand it, Kitty Pryde will be (or has been) part of the crew and she’s probably one of my favorite characters in the Marvel Universe. So this will probably be my reading for Thanksgiving break.
My understanding is X-Men Schism is a good “jumping back in “ point for anyone coming back to the X-Universe. It splits the X-Men between the diverging philosophies of Cyclops and Wolverine, a conflict that strongly mirrors that of Professor X and Magneto and strongly influences current continuity.
I love Hawkeye. I don’t care if he doesn’t have any special powers, I think he’s awesome. And comic book Hawkeye has a lot of personality. I briefly started reading the second Hawkeye series by Matt Fraction and David Aja when it came out in 2012. I loved what I saw but got pulled away by life. This run of Hawkeye is definitely on my list, especially since it leads into other books, namely All-New Hawkeye.
Based purely on Rachel and Miles recommendation, I’m planning on delving into this 1987 X-title by Chris Claremont and Alan Davis. Rachel and Miles have described it with such love and affection that I feel compelled to go back and indulge before I reach the point in their podcast that explores the series.
My absolute favorite story arch in the Marvel Universe is Age of Apocalypse and its spin-off series, Exiles (I consider it a spin-off series because its main character, Blink, is from the AoA universe) is probably my favorite Marvel series. This will be a reread for me. I love stories that take a “What if…” look at a property and both AoA and Exiles do that extremely well.
So, those are my initial picks. I’m sure I’ll get part way thought and get distracted by something as at some point, but hey…I have options!