Just past his fifth birthday, and our Bluey is well-versed in the stories and characters in over 150 issues of the classic comic: The Avengers. How did he come by this encyclopedic knowledge of the exploits of Thor, Hawkeye and their friends? Bluey loves the action and intrigue of the on-going saga. He worries about characters that are missing or captured and left on a cliff-hanger. Although he is still learning to read, he has experienced all the excitement as TRDad has read these sequential stories to him, on the couch, with full sound effects.
Tip: Reading comics aloud might take some practice. We point to each panel to help Bluey follow the action. It helps the adult keep track of things too! 🙂
How did we afford to be able to allow our young child to read all these expensive collectibles? By purchasing super-cheap collections!
The Marvel Essential series allows you to pick up 25 or so sequential issues of you or your child’s favorite characters for about $14. (DC Comics produces a similar line called Showcase, if your faves live in that universe.) Printed in black and white on newspaper stock, Essentials allow you the opportunity to read whole story-lines and really get into the subtleties of a complex super-hero world, without laying down hundreds of dollars on antique comics that you’ll worry your child will tear or spill chocolate milk on. If you are a fan of comics, or reading, the sight of a young child flipping pages in a big, fat comic is priceless!
Tip2: Practice your sound effects! They really help get everyone into it!
We chose the Avengers because it was one of TRDad’s favorite titles growing up, and because it contained a number of characters that Bluey had already heard of: Iron Man, Hulk, Thor… Plus, since the Avengers has been published for over fifty years, there are a lot of issues of Essentials to work through.
By starting with a title that was originally published in the 60’s, we avoided having to deal with graphically violent content found in many current hero books. But that doesn’t mean the comic is totally worry free. While gun-play and murder are less common in the older books (which were published under the Comics Code Authority- a sort of self-censorship guideline established by major publishers in the 50’s); the books are not without their own issues. Sexism and racism are not uncommon, so you’ll need to have a plan for discussing this as you go.
Since comic book villainous goals range from small robberies to kidnapping to taking over the universe, you’ll have plenty of chances to talk about characters making good and bad choices. We remind Bluey that the Avengers are trying to do the right thing, trying to help people; but even they get confused, get angry and make bad decisions.
Bonus! Marvel comics have a very high vocabulary level. While reading about Kang trying to take over the world (Again!) you’ll be teaching about momentum, or molecules, or the space-time continuum!
If you have dreams of sharing your childhood joy of comic reading with the younger set, the Essential series might be just the books you need to start a kid on a comic obsession.