The Comics You Need to Read Before You See Avengers: Infinity War

With Avengers: Infinity War dropping in theaters after ten years of buildup, superhero movies are, at long last, as complicated as superhero comic books—which means you've got one less excuse for not jumping in and checking a few out, since you're pretty much a fan already! When it comes to comics, the cool thing about a movie like Infinity War is that it has literally a hundred characters in it, so finding a comic you might like is as simple as figuring out which character is your favorite. To that end, here's a handy guide full of comics to check out based on what character you're most interested in.

The Guardians of the Galaxy: All-New Guardians of the Galaxy

Around the time Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 hit theaters, Marvel launched a comics series designed to welcome everyone who had just seen that movie. And you know what? It was really good. Written by Gerry Duggan with art by Aaron Kuder and others, All-New Guardians has the same snappy comedy and irreverent attitude that the movies do, all rooted in the same genuine affection for the characters that treats them as people, not caricatures. Start here.

Vision: The Vision

Paul Bettany as a polite burgundy robot man is one of the absolute delights of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I’d happily watch a British sitcom starring him any day of the week. While that hasn’t happened yet, Vision has starred in one of the best Marvel comics of the last five years, a twelve-issue masterpiece by Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta that features the artificial being attempting to start an artificial family in the suburbs of D.C., his aspirations slowly unspooling in a breathtaking suburban horror plot. Read this comic, even if you aren’t sure how you feel about Vision.

Captain America: Captain America and the Falcon: Secret Empire

Just about all of the comics here are from the last twenty-odd years, largely because the Marvel Cinematic Universe both pulls from and feeds into very recent Marvel comics history, but with Captain America, we're gonna ask you to go a little deeper. Secret Empire (the '70s-era story, not the very bad 2017 one) is a post-Watergate story by Steve Englehart and Tony Isabella in which a conspiracy to frame Captain America leaves Steve Rogers completely disillusioned, ditching his iconic alter ego because it's been so thoroughly compromised he can't wear it in good conscience. Sounds very 2018, does it not?

Iron Man: The Five Nightmares

Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca’s runaway tenure on The Invincible Iron Man kicked off roughly around the time Iron Man singlehandedly birthed the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and as such is a perfect introduction to the modern era of Iron Man, and a damn good thriller that sees Tony Stark’s empire begin to crumble around him. Follow the comic after this initial story, and you’ll be surprised at how desperate he gets.

Thor: The God Butcher

Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic know how to make a comic that knocks you on your ass. The God Butcher is their opening salvo, a story with a mythic feel split across three eras of Thor’s life: an arrogant young Thor who has not earned his hammer, the modern Thor who fights alongside the Avengers, and an old Thor who is ruler of a derelict Asgard forever under siege. The one thing tying them all together is Gorr, the God Butcher, a being who will stop at nothing until the gods of every people are dead. The God Butcher is engrossing and metal as hell, and it’s also only the start of what would be Aaron’s six-year tenure writing Thor stories, an unbroken string of excellent comics that are astonishing in their consistency.

Hulk: Planet Hulk

So remember how in Thor: Ragnarok we meet the Hulk and he’s transitioned to a very successful career in bloodsport and it’s awesome? Planet Hulk by Greg Pak, Carlos Pagulayan, and others is where that idea comes from, only better. Jettisoned off Earth by a bunch of Marvel heroes who decide the Hulk is too dangerous to keep around, Hulk lands on an alien planet where he fights his way to domination, becoming king, having a son, and plotting his revenge. It’s the definitive Hulk story, awesome and tragic and completely self-contained.

The Black Order: Infinity

Even though it's been public knowledge for a while now, the trailers have been pretty coy about the fact that Thanos isn't alone in his villainy in Infinity War. He's got some pals, namely, The Black Order, a group of goth alien commandoes who specialize in messing the Avengers up. If you want to check out just how good they are at messing Avengers up, you should read Infinity, a big honkin' crossover comic that Infinity War takes a lot of its cues from. Be warned though: Infinity is everything good, and everything bad about comic book crossovers. It's a grand space opera with too many characters and too much going on, but it's so unapologetically big in a way that you can only do in comics.

Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet

Over the last two years, Ta-Nehesi Coates' has been slowly rebuilding the Black Panther and his world for America in 2018. The result has been, like the movie of the same name (that also lifts a few ideas from this comic wholesale) a book that's as thoughtful as it is action packed, a story of political revolution, magic, and superheroics. Maybe you've already read it, though—and in that case, you owe it to yourself to read Black Panther by Christopher Priest, one of the best comics writers in the game doing what Coates did in 2016 in the late-90s, to incredible results.

Thanos: Thanos Wins

Okay, so this one is cheating a bit since it just finished its monthly run and won't be available in graphic novel form until later this summer, but we also live in the future. Buy the comics digitally and read them on your Zune. You're not gonna want to miss out on this. Thanos Wins is a story that ran in Thanos #13-#18. Written by Donny Cates, with art by Geoff Shaw, Thanos Winshas Thanos brought into the future by a future version of himself that has defeated every living being in the universe except for... well, that's a spoiler. That's the thing about Thanos Wins—everything about it is surprising and fun and propulsive as hell. It's just six issues of Marvel's Baddest Dude just being an unapolegetic Bad Dude and running train on the whole damn universe. I have not been rocked this hard by a comic in forever.

Hawkeye: Hawkeye (the one by Kelly Thompson)

Is Hawkeye actually in Infinity War? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you should stop concerning yourself with Clint Barton and instead read a comic about his (much better) protege, Kate Bishop. Tired of the original Hawkeye's bullshit (among other things) Kate leaves New York to set up a P.I. firm in Venice Beach, and the result is a comic that basks in pulp tradition and becomes, after several false starts from other creative teams, the true successor to the much-praised Hawkeye series by Matt Fraction and David Aja that countless other websites have already told you to read.