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Since the Silver Age, Marvel has been the industry leader, putting out comics that have captured the attention of new fans for years. Marvel has lived and died by its characters, which is a good thing. They’ve revolutionized the way comic characters and their worlds are written, producing earth-shattering events and lyrically beautiful character stories that made fans look at superheroes in new ways.
While most of Marvel’s most important stories hit that sweet spot of epic events and high quality, not all of them are good. There are lots of important Marvel stories that aren’t exactly good but are still required readings to understand Marvel history.
10 Avengers: The Final Host Introduces The Current Line-Up Of Avengers But It’s Nothing Special
Avengers: The Final Host had a good pedigree. Written by Jason Aaron with art by Ed McGuinness and Paco Medina, it had excellent creators and a great cast: Cap, Iron Man, Thor, Captain Marvel, She-Hulk, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, and Ghost Rider. It pit the new team against the Celestials, coming to judge the Earth. All of the pieces were right there, they just didn’t fit.
The story feels long and drawn out, even though it’s only six issues long. It never really gets going and is all in all disappointing. It’s crucial to understand the current Avengers status quo but it’s not good.
9 Thanks To The Return Of Ben Reilly, The Clone Saga Has Become Required Reading Again
There are few ’90s stories more infamous than Spider-Man’s Clone Saga. Running through all four Spider-Man books and lasting for several years, it brought back the Spider-Man clone from The Amazing Spider-Man #149 and embroiled the Spider-Man side of Marvel in a story that had its moments but went on way too long.
The Clone Saga has both earned its bad reputation and yet is also better than most people think. The problem is that the good parts are surrounded by just plain bad comics. It’s the definition of hit or miss, but with more miss than hit.
8 Avengers: Standoff! Led Into One Of Marvel’s Most Infamous Storylines Of Recent Years
Avengers: Standoff!, by writer Nick Spencer and artists Mark Bagley and Jesus Saiz, takes place in the secret SHIELD prison of Pleasant Hill, where the agency used Kobik to transform villains into regular people. It all goes wrong and the Avengers are called in. This is the story that ended up being the catalyst for the infamous Hydra Cap story, which isn’t a great thing and that’s only the beginning.
While it showcases that story’s formative event, the entire story’s plot is yet another generic “SHIELD does dumb stuff that is destined to fail” story. The whole premise is flawed from the beginning and while it has its moments, it’s not an enjoyable story overall.
7 Secret Empire Ends The Hydra Cap Story But Has So Many Problems
Secret Empire has a very bad reputation and it’s not completely undeserved. Written by Nick Spencer with art by Steve McNiven, Leinil Yu, and Andrea Sorrentino, it’s almost an exercise in how not to write an event book. It’s too long, takes the story in too many directions, and feels like a cop-out for a story that was sold as a huge event.
With its bookends and Free Comic Book Day issue, it’s thirteen parts long and that’s not even counting the tie-ins. The build-up to it was done so well and yet the story itself is a meandering affair. It feels like Spencer knew he could take it slow but didn’t use that to his advantage at all, as too many plots go nowhere.
6 Original Sin Had Big Consequences For Thor But That’s It
Original Sin, by writer Jason Aaron and artist Mike Deodato Jr., has a great premise. The Watcher is murdered and the heroes have to find out who did it, while also dealing with the revelation of secrets that puts them at each others’ throats. That’s solid gold right there but that gold is just plating for a mystery story with few surprises.
While the story had big consequences for Thor, leading into Jane Foster as Thor, it barely affected anyone else except in the tie-in stories. Its revelations about Nick Fury fell flat because they were all in character for him. His status quo change was basically a banishing and the whole thing felt ill-advised.
5 Avengers Vs. X-Men Suffered From Too Many Cooks In The Kitchen
Avengers Vs. X-Men, written by Brian Michael Bendis, Jonathan Hickman, Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, and Jason Aaron and artists John Romita Jr., Olivier Coipel, and Adam Kubert, put the two teams against each other over the Phoenix Force. While the story was often epic and delivered exactly what it advertised, the multiple writers’ tonal clash hurt the story.
Five writers on one book is a lot and it’s even worse when one can tell who was writing what issue just by how they wrote it. The pace speeds up and slows down according to who is writing each comic and the whole thing feels like a mess most of the time.
4 X Of Swords Was A Hard Left Turn From What Was Going On In The X-Men Titles
The Krakoa Era of the X-Men books was going great until X Of Swords. A twenty-two-part story that ran through all of the monthly X-Men titles and three bookend issues. It took a turn from the world-building and concept redefining into the arcane, pitting the mutants of Krakoa against the demonic hordes of Amenth and the mutants of Arakko in a winner-take-all contest in Otherworld.
The story is just remarkably uneven, as the first half drags and meanders along and the second completely subverts expectations in good and bad ways. It was such a strange idea for a crossover, especially with how things were going in just about every X-book but Excalibur, but it did set up some important stuff.
3 One More Day’s Reputation Precedes It
One More Day is infamous among Marvel fans. Written by J. Michael Straczynski and Marvel editorial with art by Joe Quesada, this is the story where Peter Parker traded his marriage to Mephisto so his elderly, dying-any-day aunt could live. It’s a constant source of frustration for readers that it hasn’t been retconned.
One More Day defenders point to the good Spider-Man stories that came after the book as proof it was needed but none of those stories would have been that much different if he was still married. The whole thing was just a bad idea and fans have hated it since it was published.
2 Secret Invasion Falls Apart In The Middle
Secret Invasion, by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Leinil Yu, had great build-up and the first issue is stellar. It’s just every issue after that’s the problem, up until the last two. Bendis’ events often fall victim to this and while Secret Invasion has its moments, the wheel spinning in the middle hurts the entire book immensely.
Beyond the boring middle issues, there are a million other little things wrong with the story. Overall, it feels like this would have been a great four-issue story that was stretched out to eight issues. It’s crucial to understanding late-2000s Marvel but it’s not a fun read.
1 House Of M Is Vastly Overrated
Bendis’ first event book is still his worst. House Of M is hit or miss but saying that makes it seem even between hit and miss; it’s not. Olivier’s Coipel’s art is great but this story is the ur-Bendis event, a bloated, slow, and, worst of all, often boring story that is fondly remembered by people who haven’t read it in years because of the ending.
Scarlet Witch’s de-powering of the vast majority of the mutant race is a massively important event in Marvel history but the story it’s attached to just isn’t as good as that moment suggests.
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