I am curious who here is actually reading the marvel universe in sequence and how far you have gotten with it.

I have worked my way up to 1973 at the moment, and have read everything Marvel Universe related Marvel have published up to that date. (With the exception of Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos which I gave up on after the first 30 issues or so)

I was actually relieved when Stan Lee left most of the titles, because, it had become obvious that his creativity had run pretty dry and he had little idea of where else to take the characters he had created. It was refreshing to get a greater variety of narrative voices as well. There is only so much of the Stan Lee style I can take. Now that I am getting into the early 70s I am sorely tempted to give up on quite a few titles and just continue with the ones that actually interest me. Early Daredevil in particular is for masochists only. In contrast I really enjoyed the much maligned early x-Men.

Its also become totally clear to me why Fantastic Four and Amazing Spider-Man were the flagship books of the Marvel line at the time.

I can tell you there are a bunch of people who have created accounts and are reading their way through. I am actually not that far as I spend more time making the order then reading. I am in the late 60's at the moment.

I agree about the additional voices. I have just started getting to the point of additional writers and it is nice to get away from Stan's writing.

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I don't have any plans to start at the beginning. I feel like I've read enough from that era that I know exactly what I'm missing. I'm not sure when I'll will jump in, but eventually I'll pick a spot and start.

I ho early don't think I have the patience to read the early stuff. I can barely read books from the 80s. I picked up two or three issues of Avengers Classic when I was buying books a few years back. They were just reprints of Avengers starting with #1 and they were unbearable.

Hopefully I'll be able to put up with Claremont-style X-Men books, but even books from then are a chore to read.
It's really amazing how much the quality of comic book writing has jumped in the last decade.

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Do not bore me with such trite cliches. For I have you in my clutches, and should I choose, I could snuff out your insignificant lives in an instant.

I'm choog-a-loogin' along right now in the fall of '65.

Yes, some of these issues are a chore, but it was a childhood dream of mine to read ALL the old issues. I would stare longingly at the old valuable issues the "Comic book guys" would post on the wall behind the counter, wishing I could read all of them.

I actually had been away from comics for at least 20 years, giving up on them when the price passed the adolescent budget-busting $1 thresh hold. Beginning the late 90s, I would however rush to the theater to see the latest "comic book movie." (Except Ghost Rider. I can't stand Nicholas Cage. But that's a topic for another day...)

Ironically enough, to echo Starnes and the site's "origin," it was The Walking Dead that has brought me back into the fold. After viewing the TV show's short run last fall, I wanted more and sought out the comic. That's when I discovered my local store was selling a large run of the Marvel Masterworks (At which I also stared longingly, back in the 80s) TPBs for a mere $5!

And thus a sick, neurotic compulsion was born...

I was trying to read in strict cover date chronological order until I stumbled upon the CMRO. I'm enjoying "The Order, " but I'll have to admit I'm surprised where it takes me at times. (Maybe that's the point!)

I thought I would never get to the end of the ridiculous Giant-Man run in Tales to Astonish, and I'm not convinced that Sub-Mariner is any better. I've never understood the appeal of this character...

Most of these early issues of The Avengers are indeed unbearable. What was Stan thinking with "The Teen Brigade?" And if I never have to read another thought bubble about "what a natural leader Captain America is," it will be fine with me.

I am enjoying the FF, ASM, XM, and hit or miss with JiM. Doctor Strange has been good, but it's been pretty "one-note" so far...
"Mordo, Mordo, Mordo!" (said like Jan Brady, natch)

I'm also thinking about dropping "Sah-rent Fury." It was good for about a dozen issues, but it's really wearing thin.

I can't express enough how cool I think this project and site is. I'm a "teacher" at high-school and I have info about the site posted on my door.

Rock on!

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The order can be suprising, and I will admit while some of the decisions are objective, many are subjective or arbitrary. There are times when two story lines don't touch and one could go before the other with no impact and its just an off the cuff placement.

Someone else could make an order that would be different in some places from mine but still be right. I try and use Events in Story, Generally accepted chronological order (if its agreed upon by the several good chronological ordering groups out there), publish date, then arbitrary.

Also, I welcome feed back if you feel something is wrong. I am one guy with a full time job and an infant, so mistakes will be made.

I completely agree with the rest of your sentiments. I am starting to see as I break out of the 100% Stan Lee era that the stories get better, so hang in there.

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I'm in the early 80's. Which is hard, since the list hasn't gotten that far yet.

I collected comics from 88-91ish. Not sure why I started, but I know I ended as I started collecting baseball cards and didn't have the allowance for both. I had saved all my comics and just recently started looking at them again... Mostly because of the Walking Dead TV show [see redsvetz22 quote] (so I started reading the books), and that my parents wanted my stuff out of their house. As I was looking at my old books, I really started questioning my young self as most of the story lines didn't really make a lot of sense, so I stumbled upon this site. I always liked Marvel so I thought i'd give it a go.

I'm at #14 in the order. I read one or two a day, so I figure by the time the list is done, i'll be caught up. I can understand why people who are really in to comics now are frustrated with some of the early story lines (ie some of the Journey in to Mystery extra stories), but as I don't have else to do on my work breaks, this works out for me. Also, I'm very OCD, so naturally i'll see this through to the end without skipping any.

my biggest fear is that real life will take over and the list will end prematurely. So I try to be active in the forum so the list doesn't become just some random project for no one.

-jed

That is always a fear, but I am three years into this project (some doing the order, a lot making the site usable so there weren't just excel spreadsheets flying all over the places with slight differences) and still going...actually making more progress on average per day now then I did.

I don't see how my life could get any busier, I own a business, and two children, bought a house that I am fixing up, run one of my kids cub scouts, work on a second site for books (that mostly gets the shaft because this site is my priority), read constantly (both books and comics), and follow several tv shows (eureka, walking dead, leverage, castle to name a few of the many).

But to be honest, since the forums started up and I started having daily interactions with folks on the site, I have been doubly motivated to get stuff done. My goal is to average a min. of 10 new comics to the site a day, although I try many days to beat that.

So thanks for taking the time to participate and keep me honest, and I will try and not let this die before its finished.

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The idea of reading straight through is so daunting for me I am going to go by a few characters at a time. Before finding the list I've already read a bunch of stuff, but not much of that is in this list as it is newer. So for now, I'm going to be doing some Thor and Hulk, then I'll move to other characters. I want to read it all, but I need to manage it somehow or I will be too intimidated to do it all the way through.

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I hope to have the personal list (My Comic Box) features up soon where you can select certain characters and groups and only read the list made up of those selected. That might be a better way for you to go (once its done of course).

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