loonyblog.

Like you, I’m a total DC nerd who doesn’t know much about Marvel, but here’s some (obvious?) starting points:

New X-Men 2001-2004: Yes, it’s Grant Morrison. But it’s awesome, and the omnibus goes for some outrageous amount.

Young Avengers: Only read the original series with it’s original writer (the Young Avengers Presents and tie-ins with Runaways that have tried to keep the characters going aren’t nearly as good.) If you aren’t getting the letters pages in your digital comics thing, though, you’re practically missing a bit of the comic because part of what makes YA so odd is that reader mail accurately determined two gay characters before the writer could out them, and the letters section turned into a bit of a flamewar over homosexual tolerance and “I don’t want that in my comics.” The original run is 2 arcs spanning 12 issues so it should be a quick read. The writer then went off to TV-land and they’ve kind of been in a holding pattern since then.

World War Hulk: Greg Pak’s big summer event. It was set up with a storyline called Planet Hulk that is pretty boring. What you need to know is a group of heroes decided to have Hulk shot into space, and he landed on the wrong planet and had to fight to survive, and then his ship blew up and killed a lot of aliens including his alien wife. So he’s pissed, and he’s coming back with an alien mothership and soldiers to invade the Earth. The tie-ins should be avoided, except for WWH X-Men if you hate any mutant and want to see Hulk beat the stuffing out of them. People who loathe Wolverine got considerable joy out of that one.

Marvels: By Busiek and Ross, is an alternate universe story that is basically the Marvel Universe version of DC’s Kingdom Come, complete with Alex Ross art. Like KC, it’s told from the perspective of a civvie bystander, and it’s good stuff though not as armageddonish as KC was.

Irredeemable Ant-Man: A short lived, comedy series by Robert Kirkman before he left and was made Image partner and turned into this guy who likes to rant about how it’s cooler to write your own characters than be the 500th guy to write Superman. Basically, a total loser gets ahold of a suit that lets him shrink down. He uses it to peep on women and sometimes falls backwards into helping people. The story really doesn’t go anywhere outside of it’s own trappings, and so it’s really the comic book equivalent of a cheesy sitcom.

Marvel Zombies: Also by Kirkman, but just read the first series as it gets too silly as it tries to carry on. As the name may suggest, Marvel fanboys get much more enjoyment out of all sorts of little references, but it was one of the first comics I read and it was enjoyable enough.

Hope some of this helps.