Marvel Check-In

As I have mentioned before in this blog, one of my resolutions for 2007 was to gain an appreciation for Marvel comics. I thought that, since we're now at the half-way point of the year (yikes!), I should check in and post how that journey is going.

Here are the stats:

Marvel I was reading before, and am still enjoying:

Runaways
Astonishing X-Men
Spider-Man Loves Mary-Jane

Marvel titles added to pull list:

Captain America
Daredevil
Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four
Iron Fist

Marvel Titles I've been reading and enjoying somewhat, but not committing to:

The New Avengers
The Incredible Hulk
Interesting-looking Spider-Man annuals
Avengers: The Initiative
Marvel Adventures: Iron Man

Other Marvel stuff I read that was good:

- Young Avengers
- Daredevil: Born Again
- Captain America: War & Remembrance
- Iron Man: Demon in a Bottle
- Morrison run on New X-Men

Things I've read or have been reading that aren't so hot:

- Civil War
- Fallen Son
- The Amazing Spider-Man
- Wolverine

Marvel things that I will never care about:

- Anything involving zombies
- Anything 'Ultimate'
- Fairy Tales
- Most X-Men things (except those First Class books! Those are great!)
- Dark Tower
- Anita Blake
- Anything that takes place in 1602.
- Ms Marvel
- Venom
- Most Spider-Man things

Things that make it hard for me to like Marvel:

- expensive "collectible" variant covers (particularly ones that are blank)
- again, the zombies

New words in my vocabulary:

- Illuminati
- Skrull
- Winter Soldier
- Galactus
- MODOK
- Power Pack
- New Warriors
- Great Lakes Avengers
- Kree
- Moon Knight
- Quicksilver

Things that I still don't know anything about:

- Thunderbolts
- Nextwave
- Black Panther
- The Kree/Skrull War
- The Silent War
- The Secret Wars
- Any and All Spider-Girls
- Omega Flight
- The House of M
- Nova

New Marvel Crushes:

- Winter Soldier
- Daredevil
- Iron Fist
- Luke Cage
- Captain America
- Namor

Characters I would like to get to know better:

- Thor
- She-Hulk
- Hawkeye
- Moon Knight
- Black Bolt
- Silver Surfer
- Doctor Strange
- Punisher
- Hercules

So, overall, I would say that a lot of progress has been made. I have gotten into a few of the most highly acclaimed Marvel titles, and I am hoping to start adding more. I am looking forward to World War Hulk and all related tie-ins. I think it will be fun. My next step is to focus more on older Marvel comics, which I mostly acquire by raiding the quarter bin, and by borrowing trades and checking out Essentials. The fact that there are Marvel products that I want to spend my money on at all shows enormous progress. The item that I want most in the shop right now is the Daredevil Omnibus and that doesn't even have Batman in it.

So, any thoughts or recommendations to help me out?