I started reading comics 20 years ago. I was 13 years old, X2 had just come out, and Borders had these big comic book displays with a mix of contemporary comics and volumes and volumes of Marvel Essentials.
I can't remember what would have been new in trades at that time (
Ultimate Spider-Man would have been hot, I think... and I remember frowningly flipping through
Phoneix Endsong a few years later). Doesn't matter: I was utterly uninterested in contemporary comics. To me the art of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, the theatrical (and in Claremont's case, positively overwrought) prose packed with dated slang--
that stuff was "real comics". The Essentials volumes were life-changing-- at that age, I thought you had to buy old comics on eBay, or something, actually getting my hands on those stories was thrilling. Reading Silver Age comics felt like time travel: I was watching the very concept of "superhero" solidify, then be deconstructed and evolve even more through the Silver and Bronze Age. Characters changed and grew.
So much of what I loved about Marvel is kind of... gone, by the early 90s. I've TRIED to get into modern comics, but I haven't been very successful. Manga?-- Yes! Indie comics?-- Yes! But modern Marvel comics feel stuck in an interminable phase of self-adaptation. The problem has always been lurking (was reading a Claremont Reddit AMA, and it sure seems like being forced to write Scott Summers leaving his wife and infant son is still his own, personal "One More Day", and that was 80s drama), I get that it's enmeshed with how the big two handle their IP, but these days it feels like the problem has eaten the books.
However! I know that there are people who started reading and loving comics in the 2000s or 2010s (or, somehow, in the mid/late 90s). I know that most online answers to the question, "where should I start reading X" don't necessarily recommend the Silver Age stories at all! So I want to know
what you guys would recommend as the greatest Marvel or DC stories of the past 25 years or so. Any character or team. Good stories on their own merits-- I don't care about lore or character continuity. I'm interested in quality storytelling with some degree of completeness, and I'm open-minded.
There are a few post-millennium stories I have read:
- Cullen Bunn's Magneto (was enjoying it until a bunch of crossover stuff started happening)
- Rick Remender's Uncanny X-Force (the only post-Claremont X-team story that I've read in full and enjoyed)
- Original run of Old Man Logan (I thought it was... dumb. LOL. Fun in a teenage edgelord kind of way, but I prefer my Wolverine equal parts gory and thinky)
- Greg Rucka's Wolverine (quite enjoyed it-- anthology story-telling is never a downside for me, I think it really requires a character to be interesting on their own terms)
- Ultimate Spiderman (up to Death of Spider-Man-- not quite my thing, but I totally understand why people love it)
Modern Spider-Man and X-Men recommendations would be great, but I would also love suggestions for characters and teams I'm less familiar with. Best Venom and Deadpool stories would also be much appreciated. I've read Spider-Man comics from the beginning until the (technically 2nd) Clone Saga, and I know Venom has changed a lot, since then. Ooh, also whether any of the Miles Morales comics are actually good. I love him in the movies so much that I've been kind of afraid to read the comics. Thank you in advance-- your suggestions are not only good for me, but good for our local library!