Comic Book Herald

A Comic Book Reading Order Guide For Beginners & Fans

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Hickmania #2: Pax Romana (W/ Chris Eddleman & Robert Secundus)

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Hello and welcome to Comic Book Herald’s Hickmania, a series running through 2022 where we’ll be reading and analyzing the creator-owned works of writer Jonathan Hickman, from his debut The Nightly News through to his most recent output. We’ll be reading one creator-owned work a month through 2022, and each month I’ll release a new analysis with a new guest discussing the comic!

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Agents of Atlas Reading Order

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There are few ideas so central to the ethos of Marvel Comics as throwing a bunch of heroes together into a team book. And with that being the case, there’s a flavor for every type of reader. You want the team with the biggest heroes and the most epic storylines? That’d be the Avengers, of course. You like outcasts and don’t mind brain-meltingly complex continuity? Go for the X-Men. Cosmic chaos? Guardians of the Galaxy. Mystic and supernatural? The Defenders. Gritty street-level crime? The (Netflix) Defenders.

But there’s one team that probably doesn’t make it onto as many ‘favorites’ lists as they deserve. A team that represents the pure joy and lunacy of superhero comics better than almost any other in the Marvel stable. A de-aged S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, a presumed-dead Atlantean princess, a Uranian telepath, a sentient killer robot, a mythological siren, and a man in the body of an immortal gorilla. And sometimes there’s an ancient dragon too. I give you…the Agents of Atlas. [Read more…] about Agents of Atlas Reading Order

OMEGA DEATH: X Lives of Wolverine #2 / X Deaths of Wolverine #1

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The violent kaleidoscope of Logan’s lives tumbles on in the second installment of X Lives of Wolverine, and true to the linear fashion of this gonzo quasi-event, we’ll start with looking at this week’s release before ratcheting back to the inaugural issue of X Deaths.

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Marvel Then! Secret Avengers – The Symbolic Value of Superhero Iconography in Relation to the World

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On May 6, 2015, the Marvel Universe came to an abrupt and dissatisfying end. There were a number of reasons for its ending (some of which require understanding the mystical implications of Donald Trump deciding to run for President of the United States), but one of them must be understood through the context of a work which concluded exactly one week prior. A book about destroying the universe and replacing it with a better one. I am, of course, talking about Aleš Kot and Michael Walsh’s Secret Avengers.

Ed Brubaker and Mike Deodata created The Secret Avengers as a black ops team of superheroes who would take on missions that the world must never know happened. Described as more of an action based book rather than a character one, inspiration for this book is often cited as Jim Sterenko’s SHIELD work. Other runs include work by Nick Spencer, Warren Ellis, and Rick Remender, who took the spy craft nature of the concept in different directions. Kot, meanwhile, had their own ideas. [Read more…] about Marvel Then! Secret Avengers – The Symbolic Value of Superhero Iconography in Relation to the World