If you are back on board with Marvel after seeing Deadpool & Wolverine, you might be looking for ways to occupy yourself until the Multiverse Saga wraps up in Avengers: Secret Wars. Your best bet is to go down a thrilling comic book rabbit hole.
If you follow Marvel Comics, you already know that this saga is heavily influenced by the 2015 Secret Wars event series. Marvel Studios is not going to tell the exact same story, but the MCU has started to cover the same ground. The incursions we first heard about in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness? These are central to the storyline leading up to Secret Wars in the comics, and they’ll likely serve the same purpose in the MCU.
Trying to pick the right starting point is always difficult, but if you want to read the lengthy comic run that heavily inspired the Multiverse Saga, we’ve put together a list of every book you should grab to get a general idea of where the MCU is headed.
How to read the Secret Wars comics
I’m going to start this off with an important caveat: There are hundreds of comics you could read if you want to understand every last detail of the Secret Wars event series. Virtually every Marvel comic line tied in with the event, and you could spend the next several months reading them all if your heart desires. But you don’t have to read them all to grasp the enormity of the story or have a blast experiencing what might be Marvel’s most exciting crossover event.
With that out of the way, here’s how I would approach Secret Wars if I were starting from scratch and didn’t have any familiarity with Marvel Comics. I’ll also note that Marvel Guides, Comic Book Herald, this Reddit post, and this one were crucial to creating this list.
Jonathan Hickman’s Fantastic Four
Jonathan Hickman is the mastermind behind Secret Wars, and it’s best to start here to see how he began planting the seeds of this multiverse-ending event. The easiest way to read Hickman’s Fantastic Four run in the correct order is to buy the two Omnibus volumes, which contain all the relevant issues. You can find the hardcover and Kindle editions on Amazon:
If you are not looking to spend that much money, you can either subscribe to Marvel Unlimited or try to find the individual issues at your local comic shop. If you decide to go that route, here’s the full reading order for Hickman’s Fantastic Four comics:
- Dark Reign: The Cabal (2009) #1
- Dark Reign: Fantastic Four (2009) #1-5
- Fantastic Four (1998 – 2012) #570-588
- FF (2011 – 2012) #1-11
- Fantastic Four #600
- FF #12
- Fantastic Four #601
- FF #13
- Fantastic Four #602
- FF #14
- Fantastic Four #603
- FF #15
- Fantastic Four #604
- FF #16
- Fantastic Four #605
- Fantastic Four #605.1
- Fantastic Four #606
- FF #17-18
- Fantastic Four #607-608
- FF #19-21
- Fantastic Four #609-610
- FF #22
- Fantastic Four #611
- FF #23
Reed Richards plays a vital role throughout the entire years-long saga, so this is a great way to get to know the character. This also serves as a decent primer to the entire First Family before Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps hits theaters.
Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers & New Avengers
This is where the fun really begins. After wrapping up his run on Fantastic Four and FF, Hickman took on Avengers and New Avengers from 2012 to 2015. If your only knowledge of the Avengers comes from the movies, this will give you a chance to see the team in a whole new light (though with plenty of familiar faces). These two books follow separate storylines that eventually converge as the fabric of the multiverse begins to collapse:
As with the Fantastic Four comics, you can either snag the Omnibus volumes or read the issues in order to see Hickman’s run through to the end. This long list includes Hickman’s full Avengers and New Avengers runs, as well as the Infinity event series:
- New Avengers (2013 – 2015) #1-3
- Avengers (2012 – 2015) #1-5
- New Avengers #4-6
- Avengers #6-13
- New Avengers #7
- Avengers #14-17
- Infinity (2013) #1
- New Avengers #8-9
- Avengers #18
- Infinity #2
- New Avengers #10
- Avengers #19
- Infinity #3
- Avengers #20
- Infinity #4
- Avengers #21
- New Avengers #11
- Infinity #5
- Avengers #22
- Avengers #23
- Infinity #6
- New Avengers #12
- Avengers #24
- New Avengers #13-15
- Avengers #25-28
- New Avengers #16-23
- Avengers #29-35
- New Avengers #24
- Avengers #36
- New Avengers #25
- Avengers #37
- New Avengers #26
- Avengers #38
- New Avengers #27
- Avengers #39
- New Avengers #28
- Avengers #40
- New Avengers #29
- Avengers #41
- New Avengers #30
- Avengers #42
- New Avengers #31
- New Avengers #32
- Avengers #43
- New Avengers #33
- Avengers #44
If you wanted to know where the Illuminati and the incursions in Multiverse of Madness came from, these are the books for you. More importantly, you’ll get all the build-up that led to Secret Wars, which makes the event even more impactful once it begins.
Secret Wars: Choose your own adventure
Once Secret Wars began, Marvel stopped publishing any other comics. For months, these were the only books Marvel was putting on store shelves. As such, there were tons of comics focusing on the survivors of the Marvel universe, from Ms. Marvel and M.O.D.O.K. to the A-Force and the Runaways. You do not have to read every issue (there are over 200!), but they do provide flavor and context as the core Secret Wars miniseries ramps up. Also, all of these tie-ins are split into three categories: Battleworld, Warzones, and Last Days.
I recommend picking and choosing the books featuring characters you’re interested in. If you’re a fan of Thor, read Thors #1-4. If you want to know what all of the Spider-Man variants are up to, check out Spider-Verse #1-5. Some of these have a more direct impact on the overarching story than others, but the more you read, the more of this world you’ll see.
There is no definitive reading order for Secret Wars, but Comic Book Reading Orders suggests you’ll get the gist by reading at least the following issues in this order:
- Secret Wars (2015) #0-4
- Thors (2015) #1-3
- Secret Wars #5
- Siege (2015) #1-3
- Secret Wars #6
- Siege #4
- Thors #4
- Secret Wars #7-9
Once you’ve read these, you can go back and fill in the gaps at your own pace.
I’ve intentionally avoided spoilers throughout this article because I imagine many of you will be going in blind. Experiencing this story for the first time reignited my interest in comics after years away from the medium. I hope it turns some of you into comic readers as well. Even if Avengers: Secret Wars fails to stick the landing, these books aren’t going anywhere.
