r/MarvelUnlimited

Anyone else seeing this?

Hey True Believers,

I was planning to post one of these per week, but I'm out of town next week, so I'll go ahead and leave 1962 a bit early. I'm hoping these posts can spark some good conversation and highlight some of the excellent silver age books that some may overlook. I'm not at all versed in the history of Marvel or creator backstories, just want to share my thoughts. I feel like I should explain my rating system in case any of these seem a bit too high/low as everyone has their own strategy for rating, so please check out the bottom of the post for an explanation.

1962 Marvel Book Ratings

Book	1961	1962	1962 Total Books
Fantastic Four	3.83	3.66	9
Spider-Man		4.25	2 (ASM, AF)
Thor - Journey into Mystery		3.07	7
The Incredible Hulk		3.00	5
Iron Man - Tales of Suspense		3.00	1
Avg. score out of 5	3.83	3.38
Total Books	3	24

After a 1961 Marvel Universe debut with 3 , stellar Fantastic Four issues, we get 4 classic debuts, some better than others.

I'll start listing the average scores for the creators, but it is a bit difficult to pull good data with the anthology books having so many authors on them, so it may not be as accurate as I'd like until later in the decade.

Creator Scores

Creator	Avg Score	No. of Books
Writers	Stan Lee	3.5
Pencilers	Steve Ditko	3.6
	Jack Kirby	3.2
Inkers	Dick Ayers	3.2

Favorite Books

While none of these earned a 5/5 for me, these were all 4/5 or 4.5/5

• Amazing Spider-Man #1
• Amazing Fantasy #15
• Fantastic Four #5
• Fantastic Four #6
• Fantastic Four #8
• Fantastic Four #10
• The Incredible Hulk #1

Least Favorite Books - These earned 2.5/5

• Journey Into Mystery #84
• The Incredible Hulk #4
• The Incredible Hulk #5

Brief notes on this year's books

Fantastic Four - Building off the great intro from last year, we see the introductions of Doom, Alicia, Puppetmaster, and financial problems

Amazing Fantasy/Amazing Spider-Man - One of the greatest origins in comics, we get some fantastic story telling and a relatable teenage hero with a dash of concerning nerd rage. The Chameleon is introduced, Spidey immediately is connected to the Marvel Universe by meeting the FF, and JJJ begins his long run as one of the best antagonists in comics.

Journey Into Mystery - A strange and confusing origin for Thor with some rough plots, these early issues aren't great, but we do get Jane, Loki, Odin, and Heimdall. This run gets much better in coming years, and they eventually explain the origin.

The Incredible Hulk - I enjoyed the first issue, but the short-lived horror solo book never finds it's footing. We do get Thunderbolt Ross, Betty, Rick Jones, and introductions to the Circus of Crime as well as the seldom used Tyrannus.

Tales of Suspense - Issue #39 introduces Tony as Iron Man, but this wasn't a well-written debut, and it certainly doesn't stand the test of time. Big "red scare" vibes here and Tony's manufacturing plants are the only thing that can keep the "commies" from winning.

I read Spidey, FF, Thor when I first started this project three years ago, and Iron Man and Hulk more recently. Most of these comics get stronger in the next few years in my opinion.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on 1962 Marvel!

• Did I miss any excellent books?
• Am I being too negative about early Thor?
• Is Spidey overrated?
• Is Iron Man's silver armor going to scare children?
• How many "R's" does Thor have in his name?
• Post any favorite panels you might have in the comments.

Previous Years

1961

Scoring System

5/5 Great comic - Excellent art and storytelling, compelling me to spend more time rereading panels and enjoying the art. I do think I may have ranked a bit too many X-Men and Spider-Man books this high, but I'll let you judge as I post my reviews.

4.5/5 A very, very good comic - Writing and art are both exceptional and the plot is interesting. These are books that will still be good a decade from now.

4/5 A good comic - Writing and art are both strong and the comic tells a good story. For me, this is where creators like Roger Stern live. These aren't my favorite comics, but they are worth rereading and I tend to buy these in collected editions.

3.5/5 Above-average - Either writing OR art is strong here. This could also be a book that is average but has one amazing panel that gets a bump up. When I think of 3.5, I think of writers like Steve Englehart. These are solid books that have a good idea or move the character forward in some way.

3/5 Average comic - Inoffensive, but with a good pace. I don't want to reread these any time soon, but I'm certainly not angry I read them.

2.5/5 Below-average comic - These are either have poor art OR poor writing. Confusing plots, or inadvertently offensive. I wouldn't want to reread this if I could avoid it.

2/5 A bad comic - Comics that seem pointless. The plot is confusing or adds nothing to the character.

1.5/5 and below Awful comic - These books for make me angry with the editor for allowing them to be published. They're either promoting horrible view points, extremely lazy, or maybe I was having a disagreement with my partner and took it out on an average comic. Either way, we definitely talked things through in the end and we're doing great, but I couldn't be bothered to go back and edit my ratings.

It had some very interesting and fun changes to characters. I’m just wondering why he didn’t get to write Ultimate Endgame (and the ultimates tbh). This had the potential to be as good as his FF4/Avengers lead up to Secret Wars. Is there plans to continue this Ultimate Spider-Man run?

New to reading the comics and I love the X-men but I started reading the krakoa era and was wandering if the list on https://comicbookreadingorders.com/marvel/characters/x-men-krakoa-era-reading-order/ is a good list to follow?

Or is this one better https://www.readingorders.com/timeline/xmen-krakoan-age

My little dude loves him some Spider-Man. What individual books or runs can I sit with him and read? Obviously, we need to avoid anything too heavy. Thanks for your time!

Real quick one here.

I'm in the middle of CC's xmen run, following krushing crisis reading guide. I'm a few UXM away from where he's inserted the whole of the evolutionary war.

Is it worth reading, or can i skip it? I dont mind big events, but that's a ton of big annuals to read, and I'd rather not get derailed from the x books and forget what's going on in each book.

Thoughts?

Which would you suggest mainly for reading comics?

Both can be had for about the same price right now and a great size for comic/graphic novel reading.

The Lenovo Gen 1 has a stronger chip set but is ultimately an older out of date tablet with the gen 2 coming out. Am I better off going with the ONN that is more “up to date” but has a weaker chip set.

I know many don’t like the Lenovo interface with the excessive bloatware and the ONN only comes with the essentials. Which is a plus. But I’m going back and forth. So I decided to get some others opinions.

Or, is there another 13 inch in that same price range that I’m missing?

What Spider-Man issues are missing? I looked at the series listing from the on-going series up until Amazing Spider-Man vol. 2. I used the marvel.fandom.com wiki to see what's available and what's not.

Note on -1 issues: That's the mid-90s Flashback promotion. Amazing and Spectacular -1 are missing from MU; Spider-Man -1 and Untold Tales -1 are on MU.

Missing Spectacular issues: -1, 101-106, 112-127, 130, 154-157, 161, 164-177, 242-253, Annuals 2, 5, 6.

Missing issues of Web of Spider-Man: 73-89, 91-92, 97-99, 104-108, 110-111, 113-116, Annual 9-10.

Missing issues of Spider-Man (the run that starts with Todd McFarlane's million-seller in 1991): Issue 1/2 (yes, a half), 26-28, 32-34, 38-40, 44, 46-50, 76-87, 93-95.

Missing issues of Marvel Team-Up v1: 54, 79, 92, 102, 104-109, 111-114, 117-120, 122-124, 126-128, 131, 135, 137-139, Annual 3.

Amazing Spider-Man v1: All issues except -1 are on MU. Some Annuals missing- 7 (all reprint), 8 (all reprint), 9 (all reprint), 12 (all reprint), Annual 1996, Annual 1997.

Missing issues of Sensational Spider-Man: 29-31.

No Spidey Super Stories on MU (these are the all-ages books from the Electric Company).

All Untold Tales of Spider-Man books are on MU.

Spider-Man Unlimited v1- Missing 3-6, 15-22.

For the most part, everything from the 60s and 70s are on MU. Most of the books from the 80s are on MU. The biggest clumps of missing books come in the early 90s up until about 1996/1997. After that, Marvel switched from their old production methods- shooting for film, hand-coloring using Dr. Martin dyes- to digital. As such, there are far fewer omissions in MU after that time period. There's also a handful of images that Marvel can't reprint, such as any issue with Conan, Red Sonja, or Kull (those characters are owned by the Robert E. Howard estate, and Marvel doesn't have a deal with them. This comes up in some of the Marvel Team-Up issues.)

Weirdly enough, there's a lot of missing issues written by JM DeMatteis, who I think is one of the best Spider-Man writers ever. A big chunk of missing issues was finally brought online last year in Spectacular, but JM still has quite a few issues missing that I would have brought online if the choice was mine.

Hello Again Everyone. It's been over a month, but we're back and some long-standing holes are finally getting plugged.

This weeks' additions are all Spidey-related, and specifically issues from the original volumes of the "Spectacular" & "Web of" series.

For Spectacular Spider-Man (1976), #151 - 153 are now available. Not much, but it's something and leaves the series still incomplete with 57 issues missing.

A lot more was added for Web of Spider-Man (1985) though including #35 - 36, 38 - 43, 45 - 46, 49 - 58, 62 - 63, and 66 - 72. This means "Web of" is now fully readable up to #72 and after then things get spotty. But we're only 33 issues away from completion!

Both series' omissions combined, this means we're 90 issues away from every ongoing Spider-Man comic, in history, being available. A little surprising that hasn't happened yet since Spidey is arguably the most popular superhero in the world, but we'll get there eventually.

Also, these additions all come courtesy of "Web Of Spider-Man Omnibus Vol. 2" which will be released on June 9th.

That's all for today. Hope to be posting again soon!

I have all the Punisher Max collections in physical books and im aware about Alias which i hope to find. What other comics, good or bad, are outside the marvel unlimited app or just too mature for most?

I cozied up with Days of Future Present to read, but part two in the series (X-Factor Annual 5) seems to be busted. The extra strange thing is that the issue shows up in a DoFPres reading list, but not in regular search.

Anyway, this is my first experience with sending a tech support note in to MU, so I was wondering if they're at all responsive or should I just count on using an alternate reading method for this one?

https://preview.redd.it/j2lsfgmg0y0h1.jpg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f84687a987b80f1bdd5adf8f41b071c953e8c3d4