Comic Book Recommendations

The MCU version of the Infinity Saga was great for what it was, but the reality is there were very many characters missing. So if you liked the infinity stones and the stories that surrounded them then the comics are going to be great for you. Now the MCU did what it does best and that is combining several comic book storylines to recreate and refresh them on screen. So just reading one title won’t really give you the fullness of the story. So here we go with comic books to read if your favorite MCU movie is Infinity War (or Endgame).

Now each of the big two (Marvel and DC) have key words that they gravitate towards for major stories. For DC it's Crisis (Crisis on Infinite Earths, Identity Crisis, Crisis in Time, Infinite Crisis…) with Marvel it's Infinity.

The Infinity Gauntlet is the first obvious storyline that you should read if you like Infinity War the movie, in fact the MCU changed the title to Endgame after fans guessed that the second part of Infinity War would be called the Infinity Gauntlet (even though that would have been backwards). Infinity Gauntlet starts with Thanos having all of the infinity gems (as they are called in the comics) and wearing them on a gauntlet. Now Mistress Death’s role in this storyline is something that I really wish they hadn’t cut out of the comics because Thanos’ motivation being love is actually awesome and saves Marvel from being blindly sexist for exactly 30 seconds. However the MCU decided to go with a different and less endearing motivation. I also wish they had left Nebula’s part in it alone but she was regulated to a side character in the MCU and therefore could not be in her original front and center kind of place that she was in the comics. As with the Infinity War storyline there are many tie-in issues, these are marked with a triangular icon identifying the story as an epilogue or tie-in for the Infinity Gauntlet.

The other obvious storyline to read is Infinity War, the storyline was released in 1992 and was written by Jim Starlin. It’s a collection of 6 issues and follows the titan Thanos and Adam Warlock. A character that has just barely been introduced to the MCU. The story also heavily includes the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Galactus, Kang and the West Coast Avengers. It is a direct sequel to the Infinity Gauntlet and was immediately followed by the Infinity Crusade. The storyline has a lot of tie-in stories that aren’t necessary for the understanding or enjoyment of the story but does enrich the story and round out the world that it affects.

Those are the two that the MCU pulled directly from for the Infinity Saga storylines. However if you are vibing with the whole Infinity set of stories they also have Infinity Watch, Infinity Wars, Infinity Crusade and Infinity Warps. Most of these are collections of comics that connect to these other stories as well as the aftermath as the other two big events.

Now I want to reiterate that the feeling of reading these is going to feel very different then watching the movies. The MCU took a lot of inspiration from the comic book storylines but they were missing key players from the comics and therefore the stories are vastly different. However they are arguably more intense, though you won’t have the 10 years of emotional build up before reading them. They are great stories and if you enjoy the MCU versions I am sure you will also enjoy the comic book versions.