Comic Book Dorks Unite!

This whole Ultimate Universe vs. whatever else is what still confuses me after a couple of months of browsing and reading. How is a new reader supposed to keep it all straight? I'm liking Spider Man, and fortunately, the first title I picked up on is Amazing Spider-Man, which is apparently the "flagship" title for Spider-Man. But over in Ultimate Spider-Man, I'm seeing "Death of Spider-Man!" And I'm not even going to try to straighten out all the X-Men variations.

My next confusion will happen when I start checking out DC upon their relaunch. Batman vs. Batman Incorporated vs. Batman & Robin vs. Batman: The Dark Knight. What the hell? Which one is the "real" Batman? What's the difference between Batman and Batman: The Dark Knight?

Ugh.

Ken
 
This whole Ultimate Universe vs. whatever else is what Marvel's ultimate's universe is supposed to be read completely seperate from the mainstream 616 comics, it requires compartmentalizing, so most people just read either 616 or ultimate universe but not both, so a huge amount of people saw "peter parker dies" as a newspaper headline, and thought it was earth 616 spiderman still confuses me after a couple of months of browsing and reading. most of the 616 comic titles being written right now are kind of aimed at people that have been reading them for the last decade, and it's a little hard to follow the ultimate universe titles if you didn't start reading them from the begining How is a new reader supposed to keep it all straight? the ultimates universe was actually made for new readers to be able to start reading superheroes without getting bogged down in continuity, but you're late, the ultimate marvel universe has already been around for 10 years I'm liking Spider Man, and fortunately, the first title I picked up on is Amazing Spider-Man, which is apparently the "flagship" title for Spider-Man. Amazing Spiderman is the old earth 616 spiderman But over in Ultimate Spider-Man, I'm seeing "Death of Spider-Man!" in the ultimates universe, peter parker died, but they're going to have this new kid put on the costume And I'm not even going to try to straighten out all the X-Men variations. the "variations" of the x-men has to do with the freaky huge amount of characters, lots of time-traveling, with characters from "the future" and lots of characters from multiple alternate timelines, with reality warps/interdimentional portals with lots of characters from alternate realities walking around in 616, and lots of characters coming back from the dead

My next confusion will happen when I start checking out DC upon their relaunch. Batman vs. Batman Incorporated vs. Batman & Robin vs. Batman: The Dark Knight. What the hell? Which one is the "real" Batman? What's the difference between Batman and Batman: The Dark Knight?

Ugh. batman exists in lots of realities, (many more than any other DC hero character) most of them used to be refered to as "elseworlds" those all got merged into 52 realities in the story arc called "52" and DC's frequent "relaunches" are DC's way of de-aging characters because DC doesn't have the "Floating timeline" thing that slows down the age-ing of Marvel's characters

Ken

does this answer all your questions???
 
Yes, thank you!

I'm not having a hard time getting into the "616" books (that's a new term for me). I'll probably stay away from the Ultimate universe books.

Ken

I get this. I really do. But if you're into superhero comics, you owe it to yourself to check out the Ultimates and Ultimates 2 collections by Millar and Hitch. They're completely brilliant, and you'll see where so much of Marvel's current film ideas came from.
 
Yes, thank you!

I'm not having a hard time getting into the "616" books (that's a new term for me). I'll probably stay away from the Ultimate universe books.

Ken

ultimate spiderman was awesome up untill the ultimatum wave, couldn't get into the other ultimate universe titles though
 
yes
i will go back and read the whole marvel vs DC thing you guys did back on pages 5-8
just not right now
 
the weird semi-unresolved issue of the third summers brother is suddenly bothering me

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Summers_brother

couldn't the writers of the X-men just make up some sort of explination of why Cyclops' father's sperm are only able to produce male ofspring, and then say that all of the Potential 3rd brothers are actually Cyclops' brothers??? that's what i would do
 
Picked up a couple of new collections at the Borders closing:

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and

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