Marvel Unlimited: Subscription streaming comics on PC/Mac/iPad - Complaints, thoughts, series recommendations

The Mouse needs your karma.

Yeah, this service is incredibly disappointing. Why would bother doing this kind of thing so half-assedly? I feel like I'm exactly the kind of customer who would pay $10 a month to read complete runs of comics I missed from early in the decade and older, but it's such a ugly mess.

For instance, I somewhat enjoyed the 2006 Agents of Atlas mini by Jeff Parker. There's a short ongoing title of that that came out a year later, but it's missing the first several issues. There's also an Avengers Forever miniseries by Kurt Busiek that's somewhat leads into Agents of Atlas, but again, they're missing several issues. So annoying.

One Year Later, Stuff I STILL Want:
- a complete "books you've read" list
- subscriptions to series with autopush to your queue
- easier navigation in general; what the hell with all the sliding keys to download and tiny view area to browse
- more than six twelve fucking issues offline; i finish that in half a train ride
- accurate artist/writer/year of publication info for each book reflected in series synopsis... lee/kirby for the current issue of FF? really?
- word bubbles not being segmented, missing or filled with gibberish about 10 to 15% of the time this is down to about 2% of the time and i can deal
- consistent up time; this thing is inaccessible about 30% of the time I try to use it generally fixed
- golden age, silver age <<<<STILL URGENT AND KEY... not quite ready to strike this but they do have a much improved selection from a year ago
- better series breakdowns; there are like 17 different "Daredevil" runs and no way to read chronologically
- similarly, link events and stories cross book rather than making me hunt and peck
- less gawky interface, thick bars up top and on bottom are ridiculous
- some genuine curation
- mass issue runs as "single issues" so that i can flip through ten issues in one go rather than having to keep stopping and reloading and waiting between issues

ok, i'll give 'em this: they have all of Ultimate Spider-Man. been catching up where I left off (around Clone Saga). also - wow, Ultimates 3/Ultimatum was truly, truly despicably awful

this is a godsend, I might as well go read everything, as they have most of this stuff up until the last couple of years:
http://www.comicsbackissues.com/comic-book-reading-order/ultimate-marvel-reading-order/

What was Millar's return to the Ultimates like? It looked, well, terrible. But the first two seasons are pretty solid (I imagine they've dated badly though)

Not that far yet, I just finished with Ultimatum/the end of the first Ultimate Spider-Man series. Man, is there an explanation for why Marvel handed the reins to the Ultimate universe to Jeph Loeb for two years? I don't know how much blame he deserves, since the overall arc must've been the work of editorial, and I doubt it's his fault they went with Joe Mad for Ultimates 3, but good God, so much bad in that run.

Need to go back and read Ultimate Power, didn't realize it actually had important effects leading up to Ultimatum. I remember reading the first 12 or so issues of Supreme Power and liking them, but at the same time, I can kind of see where the Ultimate universe started getting super-ultra-gritty now...

I've gone down the rabbit hole with this. I read about 5 years of the entire Ultimate comics line this past week

xp Millar's return to the Ultimates was... ok. Plotwise nothing special, except that he returned Cap to being a foul-mouthed asshole American who hates France, and he introduced a pre-Bruce Banner hulk who happened to be a black ganglord, slightly less racist that than character he made up in Punisher MAX.

The whole Ultimate Enemy/Mystery/Doom and following storylines and ramifications was pretty damn boss, I gotta say

wait, Barracuda was a different writer, nm

I've been ploughing through the new Thor God of Thunder run. It's really great!

Compulsory Marvel Unlimited pedant gripe: the resolution on the MU comics is lower than the CBRs I download! Which seems wrong.

I haven't read anything older than 1998 yet, but so far everything seems pretty high-res

Spent the last month reading the entire Giffen/Abnett/Lanning cosmic run from 2006-2011 (Annihilation, Conquest, War/Realm of Kings, Thanos Imperative). Good stuff, recommended you start with Marvel Universe: The End that takes place a little before hand, by Jim Starlin.

Some sites have been invaluable to helping me figure out the right reading order, particularly this one:
http://www.comicbookherald.com/the-complete-marvel-reading-order-guide/

Also read the Miller/Mazzuchelli run of Daredevil aka Born Again. Man, Miller at the top of his game was truly great, amazing that this was coming out around the same time as TDKR.

Born Again might be my favourite comics ever

flawed as this service is, it has kept me admirably up-to-date (well up-to-date as of six months ago) on the majority of the marvel lines... i'm more knowledgeable about their current universe than i have been since i was in my marvel zombie high school years.

Does anyone know if (and if not why not) DC has any plans to put this kind of service out there? I would happily pay twice what marvel is asking and do the same for DC.

you really want to read DC's all-dismemberment all-the-time current "universe" that keeps resetting every six months?

well not analytically!

Recommendation: miniseries Vengeance (2011). Plot makes no sense, but I love the art and graphic storytelling; makes sense, since the last issues features a note from the editor explaining this book only exists because they got some bitchin' cover art and wanted to publish a book around it, and it barely all fits together. But who cares! Read it because I'm on a Young Avengers kick, and this features a boatload of rando Marvel C-listers. I wonder if this story had any lasting effect.

Ohh the art's from the East of West guy. That totally makes sense.

I love Vengeance. But I'm a Joe Casey apologist.

What else has he done?

Godland, X-Men: Children of the Atom, Butcher Baker, Automatic Kafka, Wildcats 3.0, The Intimates, Dark Reign: Zodiac, Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance, and tons of all-ages Avengers and Iron Man stuff.

Reading' some early Thor...

http://i.imgur.com/bliAAaS.jpg

lol

Their "Spotlight" section is a bit better than it was previously. I do keep getting a weird glitch where I'll click on an issue I should be able to see all of and it'll let me see the first three or four pages, preview-style. I think that's an issue with how they have the book uploaded.

Also, how did I not know this new Cyclops miniseries is written by Greg Rucka?!?

Ha - I assumed he was a DC lifer

he very publicly and explicitly quit DC over editorial/labour issues, started his comics career in B&W indies, has kept doing creator-owned work alongside his superuniverse books, and has been writing for Marvel since 2001

yeah, I know him a lot more for his own stuff and only recently caught up on his DC work

I wouldn't presume to say he's just going Marvel stuff for the paycheck, but Lazarus (from Image) seems to be his real labor of love right now. The new issue of Cyclops isn't by Rucka.

Yeah, it looks like he just did the first six. And Lazarus is excellent.

Should I be reading this Kaare Andrews Iron Fist series? I'm thinking... yes

first 6 issues were a lot of fun and very very different from nearly anything else marvel is putting out right now

Finally did the Kieron Gillen run of Journey Into Mystery, aka the Ballad of Kid Loki. Totally awesome, and built very well on top of the work JMS did on Thor beforehand.

Very much so! Leads into al's very good Loki run.

I still gotta read that Loki run! And catch up on Thor, too. I want to know how he got the Cable arm.

Due to my chronic insomnia reaching new heights, I probably got a year's worth of MU reading done in the last month, probably reading a few hundred issues - just about every X-Men/larger event comic or spinoff from 2008-2014. Good times?

Last week I went through the Jonathan Hickman Avengers/New Avengers run up through Time Runs Out (right before Secret Wars starts). Amazing, truly blockbuster stuff, a lot of fun. Totally get now why he's such a big deal. Will go back and check out his earlier FF run later.

Also love how a million books were doing time travel/interdimensional shenanigans leading up to Age of Ultron/Infinity/Secret Wars during this time, as the stress of every hero being careless with the time-space continuum comes to a head. Much better than Superboy punching a wall!

Seems like in the past three years they split the reins of the big books between Bendis (All-New X-Men/Age of Ultron), Remender (his X-Force run/Uncanny Avengers/Axis) and Hickman (New Avengers/Infinity/Secret Wars). Not counting Spider-Man, I still have to catch up with that - gonna jump into the Brand New Day era (2008-ish?) at some point.

Wacky find: X-Treme X-Men vol. 2 (2012) - a follow up from Greg Pak's arc on Astonishing X-Men, it's basically Exiles 2.0 with a (even more amoral than usual) detached Xavier head in a bubble leading an interdimensional team with 616-Dazzler and a gay Wolverine to murder a bunch of rogue alternative universe Xaviers. Naturally it ends with one or two universes being destroyed.

good god the connectivity on this app on ipad is hot garbage. half the time it works, the other half it sits there spinning and never loads the rest of the pages.

yep

Agreed! I'm cancelling my subscription for a while, I have too many paper comics and GNs to catch up on.

Nhex, the Fantastic Four Run is great, and (I think) much better than the Avengers run.

I liked it at least as well as his Avengers stuff. Certainly the best FF run in ages.

Agreed, the FF run might be the best attempt at having a long game for a title while passing through shorter storylines.

I guess I should say Fantastic Four/FF since "FF" was a separate title for part of the journey