Jr. and I are getting ready to finish up the Stern, Byrne, and Rubinstein run on Captain America (War and Remembrance) which is the series that brought me into comic books and galvanized my love of Captain America. I'm on the hunt for old school stories to read with him. Not really locked into any particular company or characters, but I'd like the stories to be accessible to him, sort of like the 40's thru the 80's, nothing super violent or suggestive. I'd like them to be in color as much as possible and paperbacks would be fine.

I'm looking at Batman Chronicles, Vol. 1 to start with, but I'm open to what you folks suggest.

Oh, man, Stern's runs on Peter Parker and Amazing, Judge!!

Fantastic Four Essentials vol. 2...the middle of the run. Like #41-63, think that was. I think y'all would love from about #36 to Annihilus in Annual, 1968. Oh, and wow, the second Essentials volume of Thor, from J.I.M. 114 to about 136.

Lucky kid!!!

How Old?

Secret Wars.

How old is your son?


Was the intent of my question.

The Simonson run on Thor. I'm finishing up my re-read of it sometime this week(only 7 more issues to go).

Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne X-Men!

Claremont's X-Men (at least through JRjr should be good)
Stern/Buscema Avengers
Thomas/Heck/Buscema Avengers
Waid Wieringo Fantastic Four
Dixon/Grummett Robin
Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire Justice League
New Frontier
All-Star Superman
Lee/Romita Amazing Spider-Man

<cough> FX <cough>

Star Wars by Marvel after Empire was pretty good(up until Jedi, then they couldn't do certain stories).

7.5

Are these collected into trades or something?

There are softcover Marvel Masterworks for the first "All New All Different X-Men" issues, I know. At least the first two have been released in softcover.

Most of the Marvel stuff might be available in Essential format, the Giffen DeMatteis Maguire Justice Leage has at least 4 or 5 TPB's out(there may be more, I haven't looked at the TPB shelf at Austin Books in about a month and a half).

And this too...

Origins of Marvel comics
Sons of Origins of Marvel Comics
Bring on the Bad Guys

The Englehart Captain America run.
There are a couple of trades of the stuff at the end.

I want to suggest some Uncle Scrooge books, but the idiots who
control the content come out with some stuff, then let it go out of
print.

Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck (and the companion) is back in print. I highly recommend it. I read it aloud with my two boys at bedtime a few years ago; it was a great experience together and started a so far life long love of comics in my oldest.

I wouldn't recommend Claremont's X-Men, or, well, anything Claremont to a kid that age; I think they'd find it boring as all get-out. He's too wordy and his attempts at "depth" tend to make his stories confusing for young kids too.

I'd do Secret Wars (not 2, only the first!), early Lee/Kirby FF, Stern era and before Spider-Man, for Marvel, and for DC...I don't know, maybe the Hugo Strange Englehart trade, as suggested above, and those "Superman in the 50s/60s/70s and so on" trades are a lot of fun, if they're still in print.

Spider-Man by Lee/Ditko/Romita.
Fantastic Four by Lee and Kirby.
Kamandi by Kirby (this was a HUGE hit with my kids).
Captain Marvel Adventures by Otto Binder and C.C. Beck (again--huge)
Thor by Lee and Kirby.
Thor by Walter Simonson
Superman comics from the '50s
Bone by Jeff Smith

Good call on Bone, Erik. Even my younger son, who hates reading of any kind, likes that.