Seen the film?. Read the book: Captain America, Spider-Man, X-Men and Guardians of the Galaxy

Four films in one post, because I'm rather behind!

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
This film is based on a story arc by writer Ed Brubaker and penciller Steve Epting.  The film isn't really close to the books, but it's close enough if you want to experience it in comic form.  Brubaker's run is very highly thought of and is considered a great example of Captain America stories.  If you want to read more Cap'n, the relevant trades are as follows (in order):

Captain America: Man Out of Time - This isn't by Brubaker, but is very very good.
Captain America: Winter Soldier
Captain America: Red Menace
Civil War: Captain America (best read alongside the main Civil War series)
Captain America: The Death of Captain America
Captain America: The Man With No Face - this looks like it's out of print, but should be available digitally on www.comixology.co.uk/com
Captain America: Road To Reborn
Captain America: Two Americas
Captain America: No Escape
Captain America: The Trial of Captain America
Captain America: Prisoner of War

After the Winter Soldier story Bucky got his own series, also written by Ed Brubaker, which is traded as:
Winter Soldier: The Longest Winter - this looks like it's out of print and is going for ridiculous amounts of money, so also check comixology to see if you can get it digitally for a fraction of the price.
Winter Soldier: Broken Arrow
Winter Soldier: Black Widow Hunt
Winter Soldier - The Electric Ghost - this has a new creative team.

Amazing Spider-Man 2
I thought this film was a terrible mess.  However, they did get Gwen Stacy right.  Gwen hasn't been around in the comics for a long time because she was killed by the Green Goblin in 1973.  In the comics, the Green Goblin was Norman Osborn, not Harry Osborn.  You can read the story in the trade Spider-Man: Death of the Stacys.

X-Men: Days of Future Past
Like Winter Soldier, the film isn't the same as the comic that inspired it.  In the comic it was Kitty Pryde (Shadowcat) who time travelled (not Wolverine) and there are different X-men involved.  The comic story only takes 2 issues to tell, so plays out rather differently.  It's a good story and worth reading.

The trade collects issues 138-143 from The Uncanny X-Men other series and starts as an epilogue to the Dark Phoenix saga.  Then there is a Nightcrawler story, then Kitty is introduced to the series, we have the two issue Days of Future Past story and the final issue in the collection is Kitty coming into her own and proving her worth as and X-Man.

Guardians of the Galaxy
This film seemed to be the break out hit of the summer.  Everyone seems to love it.  There have been a lot of Guardians comics and it can be quite hard to work out what to read, or to find copies.

The Annihilation omnibus is considered a good companion piece to the movie, however at £95 for the hardcover volume that's probably out of a lot of peoples budgets.  A more reasonable place to start would be Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning's Guardians collection. It's currently priced at just under £18 on Amazon, but your local comic book shop might be able to get you it for cheaper.  We have a list of recommended shops here.  Alternatively, try comixology for digital copies.  A complete list of Marvel's cosmic stuff (with lots of Guardians characters) can be found here.

Many thanks to @feemcbee for helping me identify and locate these titles!  If you're on twitter go follow her, she knows her Marvel.

Seen the movie? Read the comic: Captain America

I was recently re-watching the film Captain America: The First Avenger.  This led to me thinking about what comics would make a good read following the film.  So without further ado, here are some suggestions.

Seen the movie? Read the book – Avengers

So you may have heard of a certain high-profile superhero movie, out earlier this year. It was called The Avengers. I intended to do a list of book suggestions shortly after I saw it, but what with one thing and another, I never did.

Better late than never, I give you our ideas...

Marvels

Writer: Kurt Busiek
Art: Alex Ross
Letterer: Richard Starkings
Publisher: Marvel

What's it about?
Marvels is the story of the Marvel universe, from 1939 to 1974, told through the eyes of journalist Phil Sheldon.  From the elegant black cover, to the back page, it's an astonishing story of the rise of the superhero and what it means for ordinary people.  As the name suggests, it's a book to inspire awe and wonder, it is truly a marvel.

Characters of Colour in superhero comics - the men (part two)

Continuing our series , we will now look at some of Marvel comics' male characters of colour.
You can read previous entries on women (part one), women (part two), men (part one), men (part three), the X (wo)men, non superhero comics, men (part four), men part five and finally women (part three) and a Spider-man.

The Black Panther -There are two characters with the Black Panther title.  T'Challa, created in the 1960s and his sister, Shuri, created more recently. T'Challa is the king of a fictional African nation called Wakanda. The local god is the Panther Spirit, the king as the champion of the people is considered the living avatar of the Panther God on Earth hence the ceremonial Black Panther identity. He is married to Storm of the X-Men (of whom, you can read here) and recently renounced the Panther identity, passing the monarchy and identity to his sister Shuri.

Marvel Fairy Tales

Writer: C.B. Bebulski
Art: João Lemos (Peter Pan), Nuno Plati (Created Equal), Takeshi Miyazawa (Alice in Wonderland), Ricardo Tercio (The Wizard of Oz and Off the Beaten Path), Kyle Baker (The Friendship of the Tortoise and the Eagle)
Colours: Christina Strain (Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland)
Letterer: Dave Lanphear (Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, off the Beaten Path), Artmonkeys (Pinocchio), Dave Sharpe (The Friendship of the Tortoise and the Eagle)
Publisher: Marvel

What's it about?
Much like Spider-Man Fairy Tales this book contains versions of Pinocchio, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and the Wizard of Oz using characters from the Marvel superteam, The Avengers.  Also included is Off the Beaten path, a version of Red Riding Hood from the Spider-Man Fairy Tales collection, and The Friendship of the Tortoise and the Eagle from X-Men Fairy Tales.