#cmro

written by @robinwritesallthethings

Marvel is a huge fandom with an epic amount of source material, even if you’re solely interested in the MCU. If you want to go back even further and dive into the comics, the task of figuring out exactly where to start can be daunting. This isn’t a series of four books that got turned into a movie or television show. You’re looking at having to sift through decades of material featuring hundreds of characters, thousands of storylines, and even alternate universes. It’s not simple by any means, especially because the question of canon takes front and center here. Officially, the Marvel Universe as we know it today began in the 1960s with The Fantastic Four. Unofficially, the origins of many of Marvel’s most popular characters and stories began long before that. It might sound that I’m trying to discourage you from even attempting to get into Marvel comics, but I swear that I’m not. I’m just suggesting that you could use a little help, and that’s where this particular fandom project comes in.

When I decided I wanted to start reading Marvel comics, the first thing I did, naturally, was to Google Marvel reading lists. That presented me with a few problems. First of all, there are a lot of them to sift through. Second of all, the way most of them are organized is not what I was looking for. Most Marvel reading lists are not comprehensive, for one. For another, most of them are also chronological. This means that whoever built the list has suggested what comics should be read, and also has mandated that they be read in the order all of the comic events happened in. So, for example, if a recent issue of a Captain America comic focused on a flashback story from World War II, that comic would be put before any other canon Captain America comics in a chronological list. This doesn’t do what I personally wanted, which is replicate the experience of someone reading Marvel comics as they were initially released. It also makes it hard to know if something has been added to a section of the list you’ve already been through. To be clear, I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with chronological orders, if that’s the way you prefer to read. It’s just not the way I prefer to read, and I knew I couldn’t be the only one. That’s how I found The Complete Marvel Reading Order, a project created by a Marvel fan who wanted to read the exact way I did. The Complete Marvel Reading Order, or CMRO, is more than just a list telling you what order to read Marvel comics in. It’s an interactive website that lets you organize and curate your own reading experience while interacting with other fans.

To start, the CMRO isn’t just one reading list. You can go totally comprehensive and read everything Marvel has ever written, whether it’s still considered canon or not. You can use the base reading order, which is the entire canonical Marvel universe. Or you can strip the universe down to the essentials and just read what’s absolutely necessary to understand where Marvel is now. And, if none of those options appeal to you, you can use the existing database to create your own reading list, tailored just to you. For instance, you can search by character or group and pull up a list of every comic Tony Stark has ever appeared in and just read those, along with many other customizable options. Basically, the database acts as a checklist. You can mark which comics you’ve read and which ones you’ve skipped. That way, if you ever want to go back and read what you’ve skipped, there’s a convenient list you can pull up that will show you. All of your reading progress is saved overall, no matter if you’re in one of the pre-made lists or in a list of your own, so it’s also very easy to switch if you decide one day that you’d like to tackle the comprehensive order instead of a custom one, for example.

And the features don’t stop there. To clarify, the comics aren’t included on the website, which is totally free. You have to find access to them some other way, but the order does have links to the ones that are part of Marvel’s subscription reading service, though. There is also a forum for suggestions and more in-depth comic discussions. You can leave starred reviews and specific comments on every individual comic as well. There are ranks and badges that you earn the more you read, but it has to be public so that others can see your reading order and your experience with it. You can also submit your own content, like synopses of individual comics and stories within those comics. This is a crucial factor of the CMRO. Since the site is entirely run by fans, they rely on volunteers to create and add this sort of content, otherwise they would never be able to keep up.

Gambit (1997) #4

So I check off what I read on the Complete Marvel Reading Order (highly recommend, check it out) and man these comments totally encapsulated this read for me.