How many of you guys have read the Marvel silver age stuff. I've been reading Spider-Man and Daredevil and have been enjoying them so far.I'm going to try reading FF,Hulk, and Thor. It's been cool seeing the start of these characters.
Reading them is how I learned Peter was 17 during it and the floating timeline was already in place when Peter mentioned Uncle Ben being dead for some months in the 1st annual. Him being 15 was a retcon and him initially aging in real time was a myth.
>>155575723And ASM#1 happens right after AF#15 so Busiek's AF issues don't fit.
I've been slowly reading the original Hulk stuff, only gotten up to Avengers #2 so far. There's a lot of panels in these first 6 stories that I really love already, though. It feels like Stan and Kirby understood pretty fast just how funny Hulk as a character can be.
>>155575761This panel specifically from Avengers 1 is my favorite Hulk drawing maybe ever.
>>155575761He’s a funny guy for sure
>>155575761
>>155575882You can feel the terror.
I've read Spider-Man, Tos/Iron Man and some of Captain America, abut half of Doctor Strange, X-Men, and Avengers from that period, and scattershot from some others. I generally liked it.
>>155575673Hulk is really good for the first couple years, it starts to spin its wheels a bit after that but very much worth reading
>>155575673It's always kind of interesting to go back to see a time when a lot of this stuff was in it's early days and less define.
>>155575673I've read Ditko Spider-Man, Ditko Doctor Strange, Kirby Fantastic Four, Steranko Fury, a little Hulk and a little Thor. Good art for the most part, though I don't enjoy the writing.
I've read Spider-Man, FF, Avengers, Daredevil, and X-Men. Spider-Man is clearly the best of those titles, but FF was also pretty good. Avengers starts off boring but I think it finds its footing once the Kooky Quartet comes around
>>155575673I am going to purchase the new Taschen compact editions with newsprint for $25 a pop starting w/ spidey, then FF, then Avengers, then X-Men. Make mine Taschen at the price desu
>>155575673I've read Ditko Spider-Man and have read halfway through Kirby's F4. I like both of them, but Spidey was my clear favorite. I should probably reserve my judgement for when I actually finish F4 though.
>>155575673I read some early Spider-Man and a bit of Daredevil stuff. Wasn't bad at all
>>155575673I've only read the Spider-Man silver age comics, which are legitimately great. I kind of want to read Lee/Kirby FF, but I probably never will.
>>155575673I read all of Spider-Man. 60s Spider-Man was unironically perfect, literally from 1962 to 1969. I need to read the other Marvel books. Are 60s X-Men and Avengers worth it? I heard that X-Men gets good until O'Neil
>>155575673I've been reading Spider-Man. I'm on like #40 or something and an Chris about checking out Daredevil, too The Ditko run may never be topped
>>155575723They're pretty fast and loose with it. I think somewhere around A Guy Named Joe Peter says he's either been working for Jameson or been Spider-Man for "years now" when realistically it could only be maybe 18 months. It's honestly not that important if you can keep it from breaking the internal logic of the story.
>>155576930Was rather shocked "Goliath" and Wasp were not only founding members, but the founders with "Avengers" being because the were avenging Wasp's father's murder. When they show up in that one ASM where Spidey has to fight Hulk I thought Wasp was Black Widow at first, they let obviously ripped her off for the take they had with Scarlett Johanson.
>>155576993I'd doing check the issues collected. From my understanding it's not possible to buy any Marvel or DC title from issue #1 through current. They always omit certain issues or publish them out of order thinking people would rather jump around instead of reading the whole thing in order
>>155579013>The Ditko run may never be toppedIt won't. That run was a one-time thing. Entertaining superheroic plots alongside heavy moral dilemmas (what you can expect from Ditko), a colorful cast of supporting characters, effective dynamics between them, surreal art, and the occasional cool dialogue and narration. It wasn't a simple 60s spandex soap opera
>>155579238>>155579013Roger Stern's work on Spectacular/Amazing in the '70s and '80s comes close, along with Peter David and J.M. DeMatteis' workBut the Ditko era has EVERYTHING that made that character so iconic in those 38 issues
>>155579669Personally I think that 60's Romita is worth mentioning. Ditko, Romita, Stern, David, and DeMatteis.Peter was lucky.
>>155579750>Personally I think that 60's Romita is worth mentioning.Yes, both RomitasAnd all the s-tier Terry Dodson art from the 2000s...along with Mark Bagley's decades of service
>>155579669>But the Ditko era has EVERYTHING that made that character so iconic in those 38 issuesIt's crazy that outside of Kingpin and Venom, all the classic Spidey villains were created by Ditko on those first 38 issues, very few superheroes are so well defined so early on.
>>155578911X-Men isn't that bad early on but it definitely feels like Lee had no real concept for it except for guy in a wheelchair leads group of outcast mutant superheroes, which makes sense if it was rushed out in response to Doom Patrol as some believe. It doesn't feel as complete an idea as a lot of their other books. It does get better as it goes on with it starting to feel like X-Men during Roy Thomas' run
>>155579013>checking out Daredevil, tooDaredevil kind of sucks early on honestly, just feels like Spider-Man again but Matt is a less defined character than Peter with his only defining trait being a "devil-may-care" attitude. I will say the book gets a lot better when Daredevil and Black Widow are a team (their flirty, sexy relationship for the time is fun), and when Gene Colan starts drawing it.
Trying now and then but some of it just seems a bit boringLike FF was good, Spider-Man is good obviously but some of it like Iron Man, avengers etc are really hit or fucking miss. Like retarded levels of 'is this the same writer in this panel'enjoying the fuck out of golden age batrman tho
>>155580420It's weird to think that Black Widow was Daredevil's sidekick for the better part of a decade and now they just never interact
>>155579669I respect Ditko for how foundational he was for the character but I definitely prefer Stern, David, DeFalco, and DeMatteis's runs
>>155578911>>155579013I didn't like Ditko's Spider-Man as much as most of you (I don't like Spider-Man in general).I like Ditko's art style, his main characters, but the dialogue isn't good, the fights are mostly shit, though I like some of the crazy poses he comes up with.However, there's an urgency and an anxiety that permeates his stuff that makes it at least somewhat enjoyable. But I still wouldn't call it perfect or great.
It's funny to be reading Fantastic Four and see a sequence where Jack Kirby clearly intended a character to end up dead or killed, and then see Stan undercut it with dialogue like "He landed on the ledge below!"
>>155579120>From my understanding it's not possible to buy any Marvel or DC title from issue #1 through current. Wow you mean there isn’t 60-90 years worth of printed material always available for the 1% that cares about reading every single issues ever published about certain IP?!?!?
>>155580661It’s because Natasha is way better off being in Avengers than making appearances as an ex-girlfriend superhero in Daredevil. Elektra already fills that position and it works far better.And who exactly holds nostalgia for the era where Matt and Natasha shared a book?
>>155579120>thinking people would rather jump around instead of reading the whole thing in orderIt's better to jump around. Different eras of comics can feel drastically different and the books aren't really meant to be read that way anyway. Plus if they were publishing them in order we'd probably only just now be getting out of the 80s.
>>155579750I've been enjoying Romita so far but I feel like he's a bit overrated at the moment. Don't get me wrong, he's not mad but it's especially glaring how often in those first issues Stan had him do "flashbacks" where he redrew Ditko panels just to be like: "see? We don't NEED you!" and I feel like he was probably over shilled a lot over the years to compensate for (arguably the actual creator of Spider-Man) leaving the book
>>155580213It is. Only other one I would mention of Rhino who was a Romita creation, but otherwise Ditko hit all the staples and even created Liz, Betty, Gwen, and Mary Jane
>>155580902I like the dialogue, but also wouldn't hold it against him since that was all Stan. Steve did the plots and the drawing but Stan would come in and riff out the wording for the dialogue and narration. If they put someone else on it or let Steve do it then it would still be the same story just sounding different. Some but are just gold though, like a scene where Peter is eating an apple and Aunt May asks: "Did you remember to wash that, dear?" and he goes: "Of course, Aunt May, you know I'm not the type to live dangerously."I'd say other than his highs being really high it's more the ingenious way he set up the story. I could really get in depth with it but he has this really elegant way of pinballing Peter through his chums at school, work friends, home life, and general Spider-Man business that was just seamless and kept existing fresh. In addition to the way he structured the cast and implemented a type of "spinning plates" plot for lack of a better term. I guess it's hard to appreciate unless you're tried writing or designing a serial but the way he approached it is kind of like watching a master carpenter lay down a floor
>>155581096For reference, One Piece is about 100 or so issues longer then every single issue of 616 Spider-Man and the entire series is available in collected trade paperback in nearly every single book store in the country.
>>155581212They could just release them all digitally if they're that worried about printing them all. It's not even that many volumes when you really get down to it
>>155581110I feel like she works better as a Daredevil character
>>155581526Absolutely not
When reading this material you understand how refreshing they must have been at the time. I've read the DC stuff from the same time period so I see what drew people to Marvel.And yes, tha original run of Spider-Man is incredible. A pity many modern readers would find the art and dialogue hokey.
>>155581511>bUt mAngA!!!Yeah I’m sure bookstores have all 50-100+ volumes in a row available for most long running manga series.
