Epic Recommendations

[Ari Gold]

I'm looking to dip my toes in the Epic waters, and looking for some good recommendations.

I'm starting with Hulk: Ghost of the Past b/c I've always wanted to read PAD's Hulk, and I intend to get the volumes around it collecting his run, but I don't expect I'll actually fill out the entire Epic run.

So, I'm looking for Epic volumes that contain great stories.
If it's part of a series that might not have a lot of volumes and I could ultimately collect them all, great, but I'm not really interested in investing right now in full-runs of these books.

Thanks in advance for any & all recommendations.

EDIT: Used to be a big X-Men fan, so leaning to some of the X (or maybe Wolverine?) books, but if they're only going to fill out content in between the omnis, and the omnis have the best stuff, then not too sure they're a good fit for me yet.

[victorxd1999]

My favorites so far are the Star Wars Epics (Empire and Old Republic especially) and the upcoming Daredevil by Nocenti Epic. The Hulk by PAD and Moon Knight Epics are awesome too. Waiting anxiously for the Silver Surfer from the 80's as well

[Dayle88]

Stark Wars and less popular, but I still think great, War Games. Moon Knight, especially the second. Iron Fist is classic stuff, the art is incredible and the stories are really good. I was also really impressed with the Wolverine Epic.

[victorxd1999]

Stark Wars and less popular, but I still think great, War Games. Moon Knight, especially the second. Iron Fist is classic stuff, the art is incredible and the stories are really good. I was also really impressed with the Wolverine Epic.

Aye, of course! Forgot about the Iron Man ones. Love Stark Wars and Enemy Within.

[Ultimates]

I've read both the x-men and Wolverine epics. For X-men it was my first encounter with silver age comics and the novelty wore off about half way though and then reading an issue became a chore. The colors and paper quality seem nice and there are a few advertisements that were printed to sell other Marvel comics from the 60s. I didn't find the extras that great. The highlights are the covers and seeing how big a loser Magneto use to be.

For the Wolverine Epic it's mostly Claremont issues. I started reading x-men about a year after he moved on so I don't have the nostalgia for his writing, it mostly comes across as overly wordy. Peter David writes the final 6 issues which I enjoyed. These are all in his Patch era. I'd recomend this epic to any Wolverine fan.

[Tony]

Thor 4 and 16 are both lots of fun.

[Ari Gold]

Waiting anxiously for the Silver Surfer from the 80's as well

Is the one that just came out this week the one you're referring to here?

[victorxd1999]

Is the one that just came out this week the one you're referring to here?

I guess so, yeah. I order everything from amazon so it's not out for me yet

[Joshua]

The Silver Surfer epic with the Englehart stuff is great. I think it is called Homecoming. Very fun read.

[Taral-DLOS]

So I've been looking at the solicitations and Amazon profiles for Epic Collections, and a couple that came to my attention have pushed me to ask for a recommendation, specifically regarding Thor Epic Collections.

Volume 12: Runequest (out in August) ends with issue 336, immediately before the start of the famous Walter Simonson run. Volume 16: War of the Pantheons (out already) starts with issue 383, immediately after the end of the Simonson run. This leads me to believe that, eventually, Volumes 13-15 will collect the Simonson run, plus any leftover material therein (the Simonson Visionaries books don't contain two fill-in issues or two Annuals from that era).

I've come up with a rough breakdown that would make some amount of sense: Volume 13 could be 337-353 and Annual 12 (18 issues), Volume 14 could be 354-369 and Annual 13 (17 issues), and Volume 15 could be 370-382 and Balder the Brave 1-4 (17 issues).

The question is: the Simonson Visionaries books are out there now, available at Amazon or bookstore or LCS shelves everywhere. I've only come across four issues that aren't in the Visionaries that would be in an Epic.

Is it worth waiting for the Epics, because we know they'll come eventually? Or should I try to buy the Visionaries now, noting that the Simonson run is amazing and now is better than later?

[Mwigg1]

Is it worth waiting for the Epics, because we know they'll come eventually? Or should I try to buy the Visionaries now, noting that the Simonson run is amazing and now is better than later?

Depends how quickly you want to read them and how much you value the non-Simonson fill-ins and annuals. It could be 10+ years before the Epics cover the Simonson issues. The Epic line could have finished by then. So if you want to read them anytime soon, I'd suggest you get the Visionaries.

By the way the Visionaries use the new colouring by Steve Oliff from the Omnibus. The Epics would most likely restore the original colouring, if and when they get to those issues.

[Mormegil]

For X-men it was my first encounter with silver age comics and the novelty wore off about half way though and then reading an issue became a chore.

I feel the same way. I enjoy a lot of the Silver Age material, but i have to take it in small bites. All that editor text explaining stuff that's happening right in the panel i'm looking at...

The first half of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is great. You don't need any knowledge of the games. The last 1/4 of the series kinda loses its way. It resolves the main plot points and then keeps going for 20 more issues for no reason. I'm not sure what the goal was for that last batch of issues.

These Epic collections are so tempting, but marvel unlimited keeps me from buying them. That and the fact that i'd probably only want to read them once. Kinda hard to justify buying it.