10 Marvel Comics You Must Read Before Phase 3
These are the comics you want.
Not everyone can be an avid comic book reader, and with Marvel's Cinematic Universe of heroes expanding at every turn, it can be tough even for fans to keep up with all of them. In preparation for the next wave of Marvel films, it's not essential to read every comic to ever star Black Panther, but it can be very fun to read the best ones and see their iconic moments recreated on film.
Marvel is known for using famous stories from the comics as a framework for their movies, but thankfully still adding their own spin to them. As an example, read Iron Man: Extremis and compare it to Iron Man 3. They share similar plot points and characters but they’re very different stories.
If you think keeping track of everything in the MCU is tough now, then brace yourself for a rude awakening. These comics are steeped in varying degrees of plot continuity but many of them are very accessible to new readers and at the very least, a good sense of the characters will come through.
This list is meant as a primer for those who don't know the comic world very well but want a good place to start before these blockbusters come out. These comics may not necessarily be the best comics ever to feature these characters (although they are all pretty good), but they are the most likely to serve as inspiration for the films.
10. The Korvac Saga
Film: Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (May 5, 2017)
This one is definitely a shot in the dark. If anyone was going to wildly deviate from the source material, it was likely to be James Gunn, and he himself said that the movie will follow an original story. One still has to wonder if Jim Shooter’s The Korvac Saga could be offer up some modicum of inspiration.
The story follows Korvac, a cyborg from the future who comes back through time and becomes imbued with cosmic power, seeking to use it to reshape the Earth. The Guardians of the Galaxy hunt him down as The Collector makes his own moves to stop him. In the end, the Guardians and Avengers band together to stop him and his super-powered lover, The Collector’s daughter.
The massive event Annihilation would be amazing, if overstuffed, and the iconic Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning run will likely continue help shape the characters, but The Korvac Saga offers the seeds of a bigger and bolder conflict, with a villain who’s just trying to help, and a race across space and time that could bring the Guardians to Earth.