It's this Saturday. I'm taking my nephews (ages 12 and 4). Assuming I don't spend all my money on stuff for them, and Heroclix for myself, what comics should I get for me? I'm a Marvel fanboy, and I'm not averse to independent stuff. Can't stand DC.

Gimme some nerd talk, nerds!

The new Iron Fist series looks great.

Avengers World is real good.

Not much else I can think of to recommend from Marvel. Superior Foes Of Spider-Man is entertaining but in a B movie sort of way, though the cover art is great. Wolverine has really gone downhill. Bad art and a kind of boring story. Punisher isn't bad but I haven't been as into it since Ennis' run ended. Mighty Avengers is meh. I haven't read the new Thor or Daredevil series yet.

If I can squeeze this in between soccer games and the kids' marathon, we'll stop by to get them something. I can't make any recommendations, but thanks for the heads up.

As far as actual Free Comic Book Day stuff:

Marvel has both a Guardians of the Galaxy book and a Rocket Raccoon book out for FCBD. The GotG book should definitely be worth grabbing.

Dark Horse usually has something good for FCBD, and it usually goes pretty quickly. This year it's Avatar (not the movie)/Hellboy/Juice Squeezers. Juice Squeezers is a really neat kid-friendly Dave Lapham (Stray Bullets) book.

There's a 2000 A.D. FCBD anthology that I am definitely going to try to grab if I can.

For the kids, the Top Shelf Kids Club and Kaboom! anthologies are always good. The only comics I've ever gotten for my daughter have been FCBD things, but she really loves some of them. I probably like Top Shelf Kids Club more than she does just because of the quality of the illustration. (I'll be picking up the Hello Kitty thing for her this year, probably.)

...

As for general comics:

I'm several months behind in reading, but the best Marvel books for the past couple of years have been Daredevil and Hawkeye. I like the current main Avengers books a lot, but Hickman's stuff (Avengers and New Avengers) is a pretty huge, epic story that might be more of an undertaking than you want to get into. Rick Remender's Uncanny Avengers (sort of a hybrid X-Men/Avengers team) is really good and way more manageable. Thor has been really good, especially the issues with Esad Ribic on art. I haven't actually started reading it yet, but everyone seems to love Warren Ellis's new Moon Knight series. The art definitely looks great, and I have little reason to doubt that it will be a good book. Same goes for the new She-Hulk, Secret Avengers, and Winter Soldier books. Bendis's All-New Ultimate Spider-Man (Miles Morales) has been consistently good, and I think it either just re-launched or is about to. There's a new Silver Surfer book drawn by Mike Allred that looks campy and fun. Really, there are a lot of good Marvel books right now.

As for independents, Image has a ton of great books going. For the past few years Saga, Manhattan Projects, Fatale, and Prophet have been some of my favorite comics. Newer stuff like Zero, Lazarus, Sex Criminals, Satellite Sam, Velvet, Jupiter's Legacy, and Velvet has been great, too. Dave Lapham recently brought back Stray Bullets on Image after more than a 10 year hiatus, and by all accounts the new series - Stray Bullets: Killers - is great.

Everyone seems to love Afterlife with Archie, the Archie zombie book. There are some good current Vertigo books like The Wake and Sandman Overture. I don't know if you read 100 Bullets, but Azzarello and Risso recently did a sequel mini-series called Brother Lono that was good.

Also, you probably won't be able to find it in any stores, but check out Michel Fiffe's Copra. You can read the first issue free on his website here: http://michelfiffe.com/comics/copra/index.html

And right now is a good time to hate DC.

Yeah I've kept up with Hawkeye and really liked it. Read Moon Knight #1 and thought it was purposefully trying to be weird - which it succeeded at so I dunno, I guess that's good. Will look into Uncanny Avengers. I heard Thor was good but I was never a huge Thor fan, or even a small one. I was pleasantly surprised with the first Thor movie and bored to death with the 2nd one.

I did read the first 100 Bullets trade, thought it was interesting, but not enough to keep going...

The premise of 100 Bullets kind of gets flipped around after that first trade. The plot and the characters get a lot deeper and more complex, and it reaches its peak probably around the 5th trade. I wasn't crazy about the last few trades, though, to be honest. I probably wouldn't rate it as one of my favorite Vertigo series, but it was pretty good overall. Azzarello and Risso are a great team, and anything they do together is at least worth a read. Their recent Spaceman mini was great, and they did a Batman mini as part of that whole dumb Flashpoint event that was actually excellent.

It's my understanding that this current Moon Knight series continues at least somewhat from the previous Bendis/Maleev book which was super underrated and great. I was really sad to see that book go (cancelled after 12 issues) so that's a big plus for me.

I'm about 3 issues into Hickman's Avengers but why is Namor on the Illuminati? I know he's the king of Atlantis but I feel like he just wants to berate the other members and not offer up solutions to problems.

That's why.

Bendis put him in the Illuminati originally before Civil War. Presumably Hickman has kept him because it creates tension and drama.

Honestly I was kind of on the fence about Hickman's Avengers all the way up to Infinity. I'm sold now, though. His dialogue can be pretty bad sometimes, but his plotting is the best.

Ugh, I hate that I have to go find all the side books to figure out what's happening in New Avengers.

What "side" books? You mean Avengers?

I guess? I'm on the Infinity storyline so I probably have to pick that up as well. There's also a few tie-ins listed (Thunderbolts, Avengers Assemble) but they don't seem as necessary.

No you only need to read Avengers + New Avengers + Infinity. It's a lot of books but it's worth it.

Avengers has some low points - like just before Infinity, the issues co-written with Nick Spencer - but overall it's been really good. During Infinity it had some of my favorite issues and great art from Yu.

Well the sale at my local shop left a bit be desired. But for my freebies I got GotG. And Simpsons and Tick because I'm a huge dweeb.

I took my daughter to two of the smaller stores around town, and we were able to get two free books each. We ended up getting the Hello Kitty comic twice because she spilled a smoothie on the first one.

I got the GotG thing and the Dark Horse one (Avatar - Last Airbender) just because of the short Juice Squeezers story in the back. Grabbed the Top Shelf and Kaboom! kids anthology books plus the Mouse Guard hardcover thing. Pretty nice for a free book.

Both stores had 50% off back issue sales, and I bought the first three issues of Avengers World, that X-Men Legacy 300 thing, and a $1 reprint of My Little Pony #1 for my daughter. (She was looking through that in the car when she knocked over the smoothie.)

Gotta say, I like Free Comic Book Day WAY more than Record Store Day.

I didn't make it to the store until late and The Tick (which I have been a longtime huge fan of) was already gone. I didn't bother to get anything, but the kids each grabbed 2. I felt a little guilty for not buying anything, but they didn't have the baseball stickers 1 wanted or the world cup stickers that the other wanted.

Those Ben Edlund Tick books were so good. The rest...disappointing.

I made it to the store near me saturday. It was really crowded (3 dudes dressed up as Ghostbusters) and I didn't want to spend a lot of time in there looking through everything. For free stuff I grabbed the GotG, DC's Futures End, All You Need Is Kill and Hip Hop Family Tree 2-in-1. I also bought Jason Aaron's Southern Bastards, American Vampire Second Cycle and the first trades of Locke & Key, Lazarus and Saga.

nice.

I still need to read the last Locke & Key trade, but that's a great book. I've read the first three issues of Lazarus and like it a lot so far. Saga is great.

I've kinda lost interest in American Vampire. I don't know, I may still keep getting it in trades.

Haven't read it yet, but Southern Bastards looks awesome.

I never finished reading the first arc of American Vampire. I thought it would be a good time to pick it back up, though I downloaded the entire first arc so I'll probably go through that again before I start this new one.