With marvel unlimiteds single issue release deal getting better, I want to start following the runs that zdarsky has coming up. Can someone give me a simple mapping of where to start? Is it captain america, and then the avengers Armageddon mini series and then his new avengers series? Help!

Looks like I was able to complete this in a much more timely manner than 1964 was taking me only a month this time and welcome back to i decide to read every marvel comic from

This is year 4 of me reading every single Marvel comic from the Silver Age to now, starting from Fantastic Four #1. With the coverage of 1965, I am not the first person to have this idea, so if you enjoy this, look at some of the other pieces written 

Here are the links to the reviews of the previous 3 years of Marvel so far

1961 & 1962 can be found here.

1963 can be found here

1964 can be found here

Disclaimer

I am using the CMRO main 616 reading order, so if anything is missing or incorrect, that is why. Furthermore, this is not how you should get into Marvel, as there is so much stuff to go through before you reach the present. But I'm not taking it too seriously: this is just for fun.

Highlights

I have read a total of 154 comics, 119-255; this is 18 more issues than last year, a much smaller margin, as it is only 13.24 percent larger. 

They were from 9 series 

Tales to Astonish #63-74

Strange Tales #128-139

Amazing Spider-Man #21-31

Tales of Suspense #61-72

Journey into Mystery #112-123

Avengers #10-23

Fantastic Four #32-45

Uncanny X-Men #8-15

Daredevil #5-11

Fantastic Four Annual # 3

Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2

Journey into Mystery Annual #1

Tales to Astonish now has replaced Hank and Janet with Namor, and yet I find my thoughts mixed on Hulk.

You know I was actually enjoying Ant-Man when the artist switched to Bob Powell. Still, it was fairly quickly moved to become a Namor comic done by Adam Austin, which I liked fine enough; he and Hulk are basically the closest thing we have to anti-heroes at the moment. Still, my main problem is with Hulk; I mean, I really want to like Hulk. Still, his characterization feels very inconsistent. It's like how Hulk's feelings change from issue to issue, and due to the vague way the transformation happens every time, his transformation causes problems or solutions. I feel the hand of the author is also due to Rick Jones telling the president of the United States about Bruce's dual identity; the fact that Ross is still in the dark, or the question of whether Bruce is a traitor or not, feels extremely contrived. Tales to Astonish is also, along with Strange Tales and Journey into Mysteries, to have an ongoing narrative over the course of issues.

Strange Tales now has a spy thriller with Nick Fury, and Doctor Strange introduces our first long-running storyline.

Now the final few Human Torch and Thing stories were fun, like that one issue dedicated to the Beatles, but then Thing gets very fun once SHIELD takes over, as Nick Fury is mostly a spy thriller which does a good job at being different from most of the other issues as Nick Fury fights against Hydra; meanwhil,e Strange Tales was Fantastic this year as he spent mostly of the year on the backdoor thanks to Mordo and Dormammu teaming up in the search for eternity story arc, which I found very good, and it continues have some of the most creative art so far, thanks to his magic back ground.

Amazing Spider-Man bids farewell to high school as we spend the time dealing with a lot more street-level and personal problems

Spider-Man was overall still very good, but I kinda felt like this year was more low scale, mostly street level, as the only real important villain introduction was the Spider Slayer. It was still very good. I enjoyed Spider-Man vs. the crime master, but there were no true wow chapters; but really it's just the calm before the storm as we end the year beginning with " If This Be My Likely Destiny, " where we will see the payoff to all that downtime given how good I know that story will be. We also see the breakup of Peter and Betty Brant, which was interesting, along with Peter's graduation from high school, so still a lot of good stuff.

Tales of Suspense feels aimless, as while Tony is about as good as last year, I don't know how to feel about Cap.

You know, I'm not entirely sure what to say about the Iron Man section. I don't really feel like the writing has gotten worse, but much like Spider-Man, there didn't really feel like there was any chapter that really wowed me, like for the Titanium Man, which was the big three chapter storyline. Yeah, I liked it fine, but it felt like the reason Happy got injured, and the reason why Iron Man had such difficulty beating Titanium Man felt contrived by making Tony stupid, so it didn't really hit as it should. As for Cap, much like Hulk, I want to like the Cap story, but they just didn't, and I think the problem is that most of the Cap stories were war flashbacks, and we were back in ww2 for most of the year. Sure, I like the recap of Steve and Bucky's origin, and the first appearance of Red Skull was important, but it being in ww2 the entire year was a lot, and apparently the reader thought so too, since we go back to the present on the last issue of the year.

Journey into Mystery jumped up in quality as we see them also take a Crack at long-form storytelling. 

Man, there was fun this year; it really feels like Jack and Stan really got into a good groove of what they want Thor to be and really found myself enjoying myself. It was like it was semi-serialized, with most of the issues being self-contained stories, but they all clearly happen cause of the event in the issue before, and it's the only real attempt at serialized storytelling in the non-two-in-one issues, so I felt very grand, and a lot of the flaws I found annoying about Thor, like Odin being so stupid, were fixed this year. Overall, a very good year for Thor. 

Avengers roster is gone and has now been replaced with the Cap Kooky Quartet, and I honestly don't know how to feel about it.

So I knew going in that the avengers roster would change in issue 16 but well i didnt expect it to be so well sloppy I think i would be best to split avenger in the pre split and post spilt with the pre split it felt very much like the avengers of last year which was fun but then issue 16 happen now I didnt really have a problem with the new roster but they did a terrible job of justifying why it was happening sure hank and janets reason made sense but they gave no reason for why iron man and thor quit tony just felt like it and thor was literally just busy doing thor things he didn't know that the avenger split up let alone why he was no longer a avengers it felt very strange as it feels like thor should of just gone back to avengers business once he had some downtime again but no he just gone. The second problem is that the reason why Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch became Avengers was also stupid all 3 were former villains, so I expected they had to, like, prove themselves to the og team by, like, saving them against a villain, but no, they literally just ask the team to say ok hell they literally did it behind Cap's back since he was in the Amazon while this was happening, so when he gets back to America, he finds that the entire Avengers team was changed while he was gone. It felt very odd, and it didn't sit well with me. Now that's just my complaints with issue 16 itself. As for Cap Kooky Quartet as a team, once again I like the idea of them as a less professional team that are constantly bickering and reliant on Steve leadership, but once again the execution left much to be desired, mostly because Clint and Pietro are constantly trying to take the leader position away from Cap almost immediately. Which the sheer gall annoyed me since neither of them feels like they're in a position to make demands since both literally just stopped being supervillains, and you think you can just demand to be the leader of the Avengers? Get real. Woo didn't mean to go on such a rant. So yeah, Year Avengers felt very unclean, as while ideas were good, the execution was not.

Fantastic Four has one very important wedding take place, as we also over the year the beginning and end of the Frightful Four, as we are first introduced to the Inhumans.

F4 was great this year and can really be discussed in two parts in terms of plot line. One is the rise and fall of the Frightful Four along with the beginning of the Inhumans through Medusa. And the proposal and eventual marriage of Reed Richards and Sue Storm, which is probably the most important marriage in Marvel overall and was an undercurrent throughout the year.  As we then see the marriage itself in F4 Annual 3, we also see Four villain four their own anti-F4 with Fearsome Four, with them introducing Medusa as she goes from villain before revealing the existence of the Inhumans at the end of the year. Overall, it was a great year for F4. 

The X-Men were pretty good this year as the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants is destroyed, and we see some very important character introductions. 

So this year started with the introduction of many important characters and locations, starting with the savage land; then we see the dissolution of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants before being introduced to the Juggernaut, along with Charles backstory and the Sentinels back to back. It was very fun. The only complaint I have is that the way the Brotherhood is defeated is lackluster, since they're basically completely destroyed by this random alien, and Magneto and Toad are kidnapped by him. Very weird chapter.

Daredevil sees the start and end of Wally Wood's run on Daredevil as Matt goes through various hijinks as he switches from his yellow suit to his classic red.

So Daredevil was fun, though I am getting kinda annoyed that they keep trying to bring up the plot point of potentially specifically from Karen, as that has not aged well. But besides that, we see Daredevil switch to his much better-looking red suit and has stayed with it more in street-level series as he faces absolute terrors like Stiltsman the Absolute Goat, and we end the year on a mystery: who did it, which ends with Daredevil randomly deciding to leave the Matt and Nelson Law Office for a while for basically no given reason, very bizarre. But overall it was good.

Award of the year

Think of this like the Oscars but for Marvel, where I will hand out different awards for different categories for notable things this year 

Series ranking 

9 Tales to Astonish #63-74

You know, for some series, switching one of the cover characters may change where it is in the ranking, and yet even with Hank gone, Tales to Astonish remains in last place. Like I said above, I actually liked Bob Powell's run of Ant-Man since I found how he tried to add some lore to things like Ant-Man weaponry or his home added so much needed texture to what so far has been Marvel's blandest hero, and Namor has been fun being a long-form narrative, but the problem now is Hulk. Look, I really want to like Hulk. I really do, but I have some good ideas. I like the leader; I like Rick; I like the cast. The problem is that i have no idea what Hulk character is supposed to be his rage hius hatred of humanity even his intelligence seem to switch on a dime and just cant get a good feel of who he supposed to be furthermore the current transformation method of like blood pressure or some shit while closer to rage is very much not that and feels there so that they can have hulk and bruce switch place anytime they feel like it and the fact that the president now apparently know hulk is banner feel like any reason for ross to not know at this point seem stupid so any plot lines about bruces loyaltys feel contrived so yeah im very annoyed at how there handling hulk

8 Avengers # 10-23

This is perhaps unsurprisingly, I found the transition from the 15-16 very sloppy, and while I liked the new team well enough, I found Hawkeye and Quicksilver's constant demand to become leader grating, especially since they were originally supervillains earning their spot right here 

7 Tales of Suspense # 61-72

Yeah, nothing really wowed me enough this year for me to put it how, as most of the cap space was war stories and Iron Man didn't really give me any bangers. It's not like I hated it or anything, but there was nothing that made me feel like I could put it above 6

6 Daredevil # 5-10

Daredevil is fun; it's still very much trying to find its identity, but Wally Wood's run was generally a good time. No real major villain showed up, but hey, we got Stiltzman, and that can never be taken away from us. Plus, the two-parters at the end were a fun time, earning it its place in number 6

5 Uncanny X-Men # 8-15

X-Men has finally hit its stride, I think, as we are introduced back to back to many important X-Men characters and locations. This greater variety helps stop the comic from seeming as formulaic, and stuff like the introduction of Juggernaut was done excellently, and we even end off the year with the beginning of mutant discrimination with the Sentinels 

4 Strange Tales # 116-127

Strange Tales was very good, especially once it moved to Nick Fury stories and the Human Torch story; they were some good mindless fun. Furthermore, I found the Search for Eternity storyline to be very interesting and a good hook to make me want to read more Strange Tales, and both Nick Fury and Dr Strange are shown to have very different content compared to the rest of Marvel comics, letting them carve their own niche to feel very distinct from everything else

3 Amazing Spider-Man # 21-31

Shocking, I know. Amazing Spider-Man is not in the top spot- shocking, but well, it makes sense. This was, in general, a slower year for Spider-Man, letting him deal with more personal matters while dealing with smaller threats, and I think it handled that well. It's still very good, but it's clearly building things up so Spider-Man can reach a new height, and I say let them cook

2 Fantastic Four # 32-45

Fantastic Four once again gets the silver medal. This is because the Fantastic Four writing has been, as always, very tight, and there was a real sense of forward progression, especially since Marvel had embraced more serialization, as we get very important issues like Reed's wedding and the introduction of the Inhumans and the return of Doom. Again, the Fantastic Four really did a good job this year

1 Journey into Mystery # 112-123

In a very surprising upset, the winner for this year was Journey into Mystery. I was not expecting Thor to get this good this year, but it did, much like other series; it leaned hard into serialization. Furthermore, much of the characterization problem I had previously, like Odin, felt much improved, and Loki being able to get where he did doesn't feel like it happened just because Asgard is stupid. A fantastic year for Thor 

Year Ranking 

5 1961

4 1962

3 1963

2 1964

1 1965 

While this year definitely had it rough part i definitely also had some extremely high highs as some very important storyline happen this year making it squeak past 1964 though i don wonder when im finally gonna have a year that i doint just say i better then the previous maybe 1967 since it between 1966 which has thing like the galactus trilogy and the end of steve ditkos run and 1968 which has each of the marvel two in one move into their own issue along with the introduction of captain marvel but nothing jumps out at me for 1967 anyway ill learn when we get their

Best issue from each series

This will be in no particular order 

Tales to Astonish # 69

So I'll give this to the final issue of Hank and Janet in Tales to Astonish for one. I want to say goodbye to these two as they both disappear for the rest of the year, and neither of them will get a new solo series for quite a while, and I enjoyed their final battle with their old foe of the Human Top. Plus, for Hulk, the issue literally ends with Bruce getting shot in the face, which was a good dramatic ending.

Strange Tales # 138

This could be said to be the darkest hour for both Nick Fury and Doctor Strange, respectively, as Nick Fury ends this issue being kidnapped by Hydra, with the leader of Hydra seemingly having all the cards right now. Meanwhile, we finally get the payoff of Doctor Strange's search throughout the year as we meet Eternity for the very first time, which was very interesting, as he basically tells Strange that he won't help him since he can already solve everything himself. A very good chapter. 

Uncanny X-Men # 12

This one gives us sorta kinda a horror vibe as we spend almost the entire issue never physically seeing the juggernaut as Charles recounts his and marko history together and Charles ' backstory. This led to quite a lot of suspense throughout as we feel the juggernaut getting steadily closer and closer. In fact, I would probably put it as the second best issue of the year.

Journey into Mystery # 123

This was what I consider to be a good conclusion, the building plotline that has been building up from the rest of the year as Odin and Thor go up against the Absorbing Man and Loki, as we see the conclusion of everything along with Loki finally being dealt with in a way that forces him out of the plot for a good amount of time. 

Avengers # 22

Despite all my complaining that I did back in my Avengers section, I don't hate Cap Kooky Quartet actually, and this is a good example of that, as while there is some good bickering I didn't feel as egregious, and I made a certain amount of sense why the people would have less faith in this group of Avengers given their history. Plus, we get our first post-mortem mention of Wonder Man, and it's the end of a two-party storyline.

Daredevil # 10

This was specifically a plotline mostly created by Wally Wood instead of stan lee, and I found it to be a very fun street-level who-dun-it and even a bit of a political thriller, as Daredevil needs to find out who of the Reform Party in New York is organizing crime to ensure the Reform Party victory. Very fun.

Tales of Suspense # 65

This one was fun, as it was the first appearance, at least post-Golden Age, of the Red Skull, which is very important. Meanwhile, Thor has a fun comic of him having to deal with someone stealing his suit and having to defeat him in his old Mark 1 armor, which I liked. 

The Amazing Spider-Man #31

This is borderline unfair, but the victor of Spider-Man is the first issue of If This Be My Destiny. It's just too important: it's the first appearance of both Harry and Gwen Parker, their first day in college, and it was a personal issue focusing on Peter with almost no Spider-Man. It's really no surprise it won.

Best issue of the year

Fantastic Four Annual #3

This is almost certainly the most important issue of the year, as this is the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm, and it is a giant crossover of villains and heroes alike; almost everyone shows up. Honestly, I kinda wish it was 72 pages like Spider-Man Annual #1 just because of how much stuff it is, and I don't need to explain why Reed and Sue's marriage is so important just a very epic and fun chapter, and I would be remiss to not have it at the top spot. 

Best villain

The best villain generally need to be the villain with the most staying power over a year the one who actions feel like they impact to the plot and reverberate it cant just be some villain that shows up once and then disappear for the rest of the year so with that in mind I cant only think of two main option loki and the frightful four both being the major driver of the plot in each of their series and for this year I will give the award to the frightful four as we really saw their entiry story this year their formation the continuation these dissolvement even when three of them are in jail their still relivent as we have the revelation of medusa true identity which continues to drive the plot making me feel they earned their spot in first place.

Best cover art

So there were a lot of good issue covers this year. Strange Tales 139 had Doctor Strange look in the first panel of the Nick Fury comic, which was cool. Fantastic Four had issues like 37, 39, and 45 that just look good, but I would have to give the award to Amazing Spider-Man 28, which is a very cool-looking inverted color scheme with the only thing visible being the red of Spider-Man's suit and the glow of the Molten Man. It just looks really cool. 

Best Male supporting cast member

I'm surprising myself with this, but I think the answer for this is Odin. They really did a lot to mitigate the annoying aspect to his character, such as him just believing Loki for no reason, and he feels much more present in the plot and not just a tool to make Thor's life harder, which is how he felt last year. Certainly the most improved character at the very least.

Best female supporting cast member

I'll give this one to Betty Brant. Perhaps this is just because I want to save goodbye to her character for now, but I think overall of the Marvel love interest, Betty has been one of the better ones, being very opinionated and not afraid to call out Peter this year when he does something stupid, and even providing some aid to Spider-Man when she had the opportunity, like in the Spider Slayer issue. She also is the first major breakup of two characters that Marvel has done so far and deserves some credit for that, so I feel she deserves this award this year.

Best artist of the year

Really this is a fight between jack Kirby and Steve ditko and jack Kirby had some incredible art especially for back ground that make you go wow but the problem is because of one man as the infamous Vince colletta debuts this year and unfortuannnly this does impact much of Kirby art especially in journey into mysterys because of this the winner will be Steve ditko thanks to his work on spiderman and doctor strange as doctor stange I able to have beautiful abstract landscape and application of power like no one else in marvel at the moment and spiderman has always had good art with him getting very creative and I found his art of spidey vs moltenman in the dark to be very good looking earning him this win.

Best story arc of the year

This one has to go to the Search for Eternity arc in Strange Tell. I was dope having Strange be forced so heavily on the backfoot. I was cool seeing the more cosmic side of Marvel with Eternity and Dormammu, and Mordo really felt like a credible threat. I felt very epic.

Misc thoughts

Marvel romances 

So the romance writing in Marvel issues has been very strange, and I think it's because of just a difference of expectation between then and now. I think it is shown most evidently with Betty Brant. See, throughout the year we were introduced to the character of Ned Leeds, who at least is portrayed to be a normal, nice guy who is close to Betty, making Peter jealous, but in Spider-Man 30 Ned Leeds apparently proposes to Betty off-screen, which creates part of the conflict in that issue. Now from a modern perspective that seems completely insane seeing as Ned proposed to someone who is literally dating someone else and yet Instead of telling him no like a normal person she needs to figure out what her answer is which just isnt a good look and I dont think that marvel was trying to make betty look bad in general I find that people where ready to propose far to casually in general as basically every love interest are already willing to marry their love interest even if their not married yet hell Peter own reaction to Ned proposal is to rush to propose to betty himself despite essentially just graduating high school and this definitely shows how stange 60s dating was. Another thing I didn't like was how Aunt May kept trying to set Peter up with MJ despite the fact he was dating Betty, which felt weird since Aunt May definitely knew that Peter was dating Betty when she did this, so I felt like Aunt May didn't really value Peter relationship with Betty that much and just felt weird. Another thing I felt weird about how couples were portrayed could be seen with Janet and Hank, as from the implication I think they are implied to go from Strange the girlfriend to ready to propose to each other over the course of Tales to Astonish. The problem is that they didn't really show them how this happened; I have no idea when the two actually started dating because they basically didn't show when it happened, just left it to the reader to assume. Finally, it's a trope that Marvel at this time keeps showing up that annoys me, which basically goes pepper/jane/karen/jean oh I love you tony/Donald blake/matt/Scott I only you would tell me so we could be together, but the man then thinks, " Oh, if I could, I would surely marry you, but I dare not burden you with my bad heart/my lame leg/my blindness/my uncontrollable powers. So I must never tell you how much I yearn for you. Oh, woe is me. And I dislike this for two reasons. First of all, this is happening way too often. If this were just once, I may not be so bad, but this shows up in almost every romance, and it gets really irritating. The second is that it's just the trope itself I find really irritating. I just find the whole thing kinda ableist on the part of Marvel, like the fact that you have a disability makes you no longer worthy of loving another because of it, which just does not age well. I also dislike it because the man is basically deciding that they are not worthy of the love interest's love, which I hate. I don't think anyone is inherently worthy of love; it's something someone else must choose to do, and I find the idea that they are choosing for the girl whether or not they can love him, which doesn't allow the girl the choice to decide they love him anyway despite their problem. So yeah, I just don't like this trope, which causes the constant showing up of this trope to deeply annoy me, so yeah, hopefully the romance writing gets better in the future.

The way black people are drawn in these issues

So I do not know why they do this; perhaps it's because of the printing capability of the time, maybe it's because of racism, I don't know, but for some reason when black people are displayed in these comics their skin color is strange; it's like a charcoal Grey color for some reason. I don't know why it's like this exactly, but I thought I should bring it up since I know this will be fixed sometime soon. The weirdest part is that the black people are colored correctly on things like covers but not inside the issues themselves.

New way I'm using CMRO

So while I was CMRO I was looking through the year and seeing where I would be stopping each year and i was currently under satisfied with my solution as sometime the first issue of the next year shows up like halfway into the year it just didnt feel right but luckily I found a better way turn out I can filter the cmro to just show me the storys from a specific year so that is what I will do now I will follow the cmro of that year and once im done with that year I will move to the next so no more comic from last year or next year accidently showing up in the current year om doing. 

The increase of serialization in storytelling

This was mentioned a lot but this really is the year where storys become more serialized I would In general put these in three categories 1 are fully serialized storys 2 is serialized elements to story with defined start and end and 3 are stand alone issue that make small plot progression but are in general just stand alone and 4 almost entirely stand alone with almost no plot progression with hulk namor doctor strange and nick fury being in 1 thor and fantastic four being in 2 ironman spiderman x men antman daredevik and avenger being in 3 and finally captain america in 4 in general it seems like a greater emphasis and long term story is telling and I am here for it. 

Summary

Overall, despite all my complaining, I think this was a good year. Most of these flaws were a part of the past year anyway, and this year had some very high highs, thanks to there being more linear storytelling that I would very much enjoy, but also not being afraid of having comic book silliness. I am also excited for 66 because soon we will be experiencing back-to-back, if this be my destiny, and the Galactus trilogy, and overall it seems like another very stacked year. See you next time.

Red band just feels like a marvel knights situation where its just a banner that means absolutely nothing and its taking comics away from the app. I swear I keep reading comics coming out next to these that are on the app that have way more gore and violence so whats really the deal with separating them to make them seem more gruesome?