10 Marvel Graphic Novels You Must Read Before You Die
1. Marvels
Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross's Marvels is the ultimate example of everything we've been praising in this article so far: it's a graphic novel with superb writing, gorgeous art, a complete and easy-to-understand story, and totally apart from the decades of history Marvel comics have racked up at this point. At the same time, it's a book that's entirely steeped in that history, a whistle stop tour through all the biggest events in the fictional universe's timeline that is certainly enriched by a prior knowledge but certainly doesn't falter in the absence of one.
Told through the (literal) lens of photojournalist Phil Sheldon, a purposeful everyman who represents the audience as they're privy to the first appearances of superheroes in a realistically rendered New York City, painted beautifully by Ross, and the world tries to adapt to this totally new status quo. In retelling key events in Marvel's history new readers can become acquainted with the decades of backstory that may have stopped them from getting into other comics, whilst also getting a contemporary and humanistic angle on some of the more colourful and fancy free adventures of the sixties. Busiek does a terrific job making us identify with Sheldon, an ordinary man who finds himself out of time once costumed superheroes begin to populate his city.
In a way Sheldon is like a new reader trying to get to grips with the totally insane and intimidating world of comic books, totally baffled and unable to process these completely new and unprecedented creatures. Besides being a good audience identification figure, though, Phil helps to ground even Marvel's more street level heroics in the everyday, in a world that's familiar to us and thus makes the appearance of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and all the rest all the more earth-shaking.
In many ways, Marvels is the perfect Marvel graphic novel. And not just because of the name - it sums up everything that's great about the publisher's output. A nostalgic trip through their backstory for established readers, a good history lesson for new readers, and just a great story for everyone else.
If you don't get to anything else on this list, at least make sure Marvels is a graphic novel you read before you die. You shan't regret it.