Pokemon Go Swablu Community Day – The Climb #813

Saturday 15^th May 2021

I’d originally planned for today’s The Climb to be about Pokemon Go Swablu Community Day but given that I have the shiny already, the move isn’t supposed to be that great and I spent very little time playing, there’s not really a lot to say.

Instead I spent a lot of time on the Support Bubble sofa continuing my Marvel Mega Read.

I bought myself access to Marvel Unlimited earlier this year and I’m not regretting it. It gives me access to pretty much the entire Marvel print run.

One of the things that makes me more Marvel than DC is the events. Yes, they’ve got a bit silly nowadays, but I love the idea of interconnected stories.

For a number of years I’ve tried to do chronological reads. Back in the bad old days I had some comics torrents of House of M and Civil War and I enjoyed reading through them chronologically.

Partly born out of pandemic boredom, partly out of a need to read a lot of this Marvel history, I decided now would be the perfect time to do a Mega Read.

The idea behind a Mega Read is that you pick a spot in the Marvel history and then you read every comic forwards in story chronological order. That might mean reading an issue of Spider-Man only to then swap to an issue of the X-Men. The point is that you end up reading ALL the comics.

My starting point was Avengers Disassembled. I choose this because it was probably the first big cross-over of Modern Marvel, and because I’ve read House of M and didn’t want to start with something I’ve read. I figure that if I try and read the current stuff, it’s going to be more out of order and that I need at least a couple of years gap for the chronology of issues to be established.

To scratch the current itch, I’ve been watching the Youtube Channel Comics Explained and gone through some of their multi-hour videos on various more modern Marvel events. Cheating, maybe? I’ve just finished a 7 hour video on Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers and I’m excited to oen day get to it.

There are various lists out there by various fans that attempt to put everything in chronological order. They aren’t perfect, but a mistake here or there doesn’t ruin the reading enjoyment. Indeed, the most difficult thing to do is pick up with something like the X-Men after you’ve been reading other things the last 20 issues. Thankfully, most of the chronology I’m using tries to keep things organised in arcs.

I can read comics on the support bubble sofa with the TV blaring. So if something crap is on the TV, I’ve dipped in and read a comic or two.

I’m over 200 comics in now and I’ve done Avengers Disassembled, and I’m approaching House of M. I kinda like that I’ve read tonnes and yet still not got anywhere.

I’d thought that those gaps between events would be pretty barren but I’ve actually read some good mini series. I’ve recently finished the origin of the Winter Soldier and last night saw a comic with the first appearance of Maria Hill.

Best of all, on really boring days like today, it gives me something to do.

I’m looking forward to getting to the House of M and my second major event. From there’s it’s not long into Civil War and then into World War Hulk which I’ve never read before.

Also, the Young Avengers first arc was great and I can totally see the MCU putting all the set pieces in place to do a film of them.