Marvel Essential volumes: Recommendations

[boshobosho]

I like the Marvel Essential editions and want to get more.
I already have
Essential Punisher vol 1. Dazzler vol 1. Savage She-Hulk vol. 1, and Ms. Marvel vol. 1
What would you say are the best/worth picking up first and are there any that just aren't any good?

[Maestro]

The classic collections are

Fantastic Four
Amazing Spider-Man
Thor
Captain America
X-Men
Silver Surfer
Dr. Strange

These are all excellent. So far the only Essential I've read that was mostly horrible is Iron Man.

[Cestrian]

I like the Marvel Essential editions and want to get more.
I already have
Essential Punisher vol 1. Dazzler vol 1. Savage She-Hulk vol. 1, and Ms. Marvel vol. 1
What would you say are the best/worth picking up first and are there any that just aren't any good?

Personally, I was surprised by how much I liked the Killraven trade. Its not generally well thought of but I really enjoyed it, in a kind of cheesy 70s comics way. Also surprisingly fun is Godzilla. There's some good stories in Tales of the Zombie too but there's a lot of filler, magazine articles and the like so I wouldn't call it a must buy.

Essential Howard the Duck is a gem. And I can't recommend the Defenders essentials too much. The best is probably the Gerber run in the latter half of 2and the beginning of 3 but it's all good. Tomb of Dracula is pretty damn highly recommended but I wasn't all that fond myself. There are some good bits yeah, but it's a bit soapy for my liking and takes too long to get going.

Spider-man is pretty damn unbeatable in terms of early silver-age marvel in my opinion. The first two essentials in particular but honestly all of the ones currently out for Amazing spider-man are worth picking up.

The first Dr. Strange Essential is terrific until about half way but after Ditko and Lee leave it loses a lot, the last storyline is flat out poor. The second Essential doesn't quite reach those heights either.

Captain America and Thor I wouldn't recommend. They're not bad but they're not great either. I wasn't keen on the Lee-Buscema Silver Surfer either, I thought the Englehart version in Essential 2 was far more appealing. Hulk is far too bitty at first, it's not really until the second Essential that the status quo is properly set up. However once it hits its stride, it's damned addictive. The Mogol story in Essential 3 is tragedy at it's best. You might be best starting with the second Essential to be honest.

Fantastic Four is well worth picking up too just because of how influential it is. The first seven or eight issues aren't much cop but once it hits it's stride it's great fun as long as you don’t expect the plots to make sense and you don't find your comics being horribly sexist.

[Leocomix]

It's going to depend on your taste. You picked up late 70s early 80s collections, which in my opinion are a poor period. Marvel experienced a writerly renaissance in the early 70s with people like Steve Gerber, Don Mc Gregor, Steve Englehart, Marv Wolfman. I recommend Tomb of Dracula because it comes out well in black and white.
Also:
Killraven
Howard the Duck (but if you can afford it wait for the Omnibus)
Defenders (espcially volume 2 and 3)
Dr. Strange is a fest of great art (Ditko, Colan Brunner, etc) I recommend all three volumes even though the storis are not always as good as the art. The lack of color is a disavantage too
I liked the Marvel Horror volume with stories by Gerber and Claremont
The Iron Fist volume has some very good Claremont/Byrn stories
I also recommend Man-Thing
If you would rather buy comics from the same period as Dazzler, She-Hulk then go for Spider-Woman, late Spider-Man volumes, Nova.

[matthewaos]

I would say Moon Knight, Spider-Man, and Man-Thing (I think he has an essential), and Ghost Rider.