Welcome to our Marvel Comics Reading Orders Guide, a page dedicated to helping you navigate into the Marvel Universe, primarily by exploring the history of your favorite characters, but also with crossover events and other specific Marvel periods. We’re specialized in reading orders by trade paperbacks, but you’ll also find issue-by-issue orders for events.
New guides are published regularly, so come to check out Comic Book Treasury often!
Don’t know where to start? Check out our 25 Best Marvel Comic Books to Read to discover some of the best stories Marvel has to offer!
Marvel Timeline, Events & Eras
Marvel Timeline/Era Guide:
- Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers
- Dark Reign, Norman Osborn takes over the Marvel Universe
- Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers
Other Realities:
- Earth-X Comics (Earth-9997 or the Alex Ross Universe) (Coming Soon!)
- Marvel 2099 Comics (Earth-928, home of Miguel O’Hara)
- Marvel Zombies Comics, a Reading Order to the most famous Infected Zombie World of Marvel
- Ultimate Marvel Comics (with Spider-Man Miles Morales, Fantastic Four, X-Men, The Ultimates)
You can also take a look at the DC Comics Reading Orders.
For more information about characters and storylines, check out our Comic Book Mini Encyclopedia Index Guide!
Marvel Characters & Team Guides
Explore the Marvel Universe with reading guides covering a specific character (or a specific period in a character’s history).
The Spider-Man Universe
An introduction for many characters
- Explore the Spider-Verse: Your Guide to Marvel’s Spider Family
- The Venomverse: A Guide to Marvel’s Main Symbiote Characters
Peter Parker/Spider-Man from Earth-616
- The Complete Spider-Man is here!
The following articles focus on a special era/run: - The Best Spider-Man Stories
Allies, Enemies and members of the Spider-Verse
- Anya Corazon (Araña, Spider-Girl)
- Ben Reilly, The other Spider-Man (aka Scarlet Spider)
- Black Cat, Marvel’s Lucky Cat Burglar
- Carnage
- Jessica Drew, the first Spider-Woman
- Kaine Parker, Peter Parker’s clone (and the second Scarlet Spider)
- Madame Web (Cassandra Webb and Julia Carpenter)
- May “Mayday” Parker (Spider-Girl/Spider-Woman from Earth-982)
- Miles Morales (Spider-Man, Champions, Ultimate)
- Silk (Cindy Moon)
- Spider-Gwen (Gwen Stacy, Spider-Ghost)
- Spider-Man 2099 (Miguel O’Hara)
- Spider-Man Noir (member of the Spider-Verse)
- Spider-Punk (Hobie Brown)
- Superior Spider-Man
- Venom
- focus on Donny Cates’ Venom Run
Spider-Teams
- The Web-Warriors, the protectors of the Spider-Verse
The X-Men Universe
- X-Men Omnibus Reading Order
- X-Men Part 1: The Silver Age & the Chris Claremont Era
- ’90s X-Men (1991-2001) Part. 2: Fatal Attractions, Age of Apocalypse, Onslaught, Zero Tolerance, and more
- X-Men: The Modern Era (2001-2007) – Part. 3: From the Grant Morrison era to House of M
- X-Men Part. 4: The Messiah trilogy, Dark Reign, Schism, Avengers Vs X-Men (2007-2012)
- X-Men Part. 5: Marvel NOW, All-New, All-Different Marvel & ResurrXion (2012-2019)
- X-Men by Jonathan Hickman, Part. 6: Dawn of X & Reign of X (2019-2022)
- X-Men Part. 7: Destiny of X, The Second Age of the X-Men of Krakoa
Solo X-Men
- Cable
- Cyclops aka Scott Summers
- Deadpool
- See also our beginners’ guide to the Merc with a Mouth!
- Domino (Coming Soon)
- Emma Frost, the White Queen
- Gwenpool
- Havok, Alex Summers
- Kitty Pryde
- Legion, David Haller
- Magik, Illyana Rasputin
- Nightcrawler
- Old Man Logan
- Storm, Ororo Munroe
- Wolverine
- focus on Wolverine by Jason Aaron
- X-23/Wolverine, Laura Kinney
X-Men Teams
- Excalibur
- Generation X
- New Mutants
- X-Factor
- X-Force (including Uncanny X-Force & X-Statix)
The Avengers
- The Avengers Guide (1963-2015)
- focus on Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers
- focus on Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers
- The Avengers Reading Guide, Post Secret Wars (2015-Present)
- Young Avengers Comics
All Marvel Teams/Family
- Agents of Atlas
- Alpha Flight, Canada’s premier team of superheroes
- The Avengers (see above!)
- The Defenders
- Eternals
- Excalibur
- Fantastic Four
- focus on Jonathan Hickman’s Fantastic Four
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- focus on Star-Lord
- Generation X
- Inhumans
- New Mutants
- Thunderbolts
- X-Factor
- X-Force
- X-Men (see above!)
- Young Avengers Comics
Marvel Solo Characters
- Adam Warlock
- Amadeus Cho (Brawn)
- America Chavez (Miss America)
- Ant-Man, from Hank Pym to Scott Lang
- Black Panther, The King of Wakanda
- focus on Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Black Widow
- Blade, Marvel’s Vampire Hunter
- Captain America
- focus on Captain America by Ed Brubaker
- Captain Britain
- Captain Marvel, From Mar-Vell to Carol Danvers
- Carol Danvers
- Clint Barton, The First Hawkeye
- Cloak and Dagger
- Cosmic Ghost Rider
- Daredevil
- focus on Daredevil by Frank Miller
- Dracula Reading Order
- Deathlok Reading Order, Marvel’s Deadly Cyborgs
- Doctor Doom
- Doctor Strange
- Elektra, Marvel’s most deadly assassin
- Elsa Bloodstone, Monster Hunter
- Jeff The Land Shark, Marvel’s cult-favorite landshark
- Ghost Rider
- Hercules
- Howard the Duck
- Hulk
- Hyperion
- Iron Fist
- Iron Man (Tony Stark)
- Ironheart (Riri Williams)
- Jessica Jones
- Kate Bishop, The Superior Hawkeye
- Kingpin, Wilson Fisk Recommended Reading Order
- Ka-Zar
- Loki
- Luke Cage
- The Man-Thing
- The Maker, The Ultimate Reed Richards
- Maya Lopez (Echo)
- Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
- Moon Knight
- Morbius, Marvel’s Living Vampire
- Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan
- Nadia Van Dyne, the Unstoppable Wasp
- Namor, Imperius Rex!
- Nick Fury, Marvel’s Legendary Spy
- Nova (Richard Rider & Sam Alexander)
- The Punisher
- focus on The Punisher by Garth Ennis
- Rocket Raccoon, member of The Guardians of the Galaxy
- Sam Wilson (The Falcon)
- Scarlet Witch, The Wanda Maximoff Story
- Sentry, the Golden Guardian of Good
- Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu
- Silver Surfer
- She-Hulk (Jennifer Walters)
- Squirrel Girl (Doreen Green)
- Star-Lord, member of The Guardians of the Galaxy
- Thanos
- Thor
- focus on Thor by Jason Aaron
- War Machine (James Rhodes)
- The Wasp (Janet van Dyne)
- Werewolf by Night
- Winter Soldier (Bucky Barnes)
- Yelena Belova (Black Widow/White Widow)