Even though I’ve been hooked on comics lately, I still only consider myself a casual comic book fan. When I was fifteen or so, I read a lot of graphic novels and religiously bought new issues of Wizard Magazine, but I didn’t make it to comic book shops often enough (or have the money) to keep up with ongoing stories. When you take into account the decades and decades of history most of the major superheroes have now, not to mention all the reboots and parallel timelines it can be overwhelming to get into a new character.

Being way more of a movie buff than a comic one, I am a huge fan of what Marvel has done with their Cinematic Universe. Iron Man was a big surprise, and although The Incredible Hulk was just alright and Iron Man 2 was a disappointment, the shared universe really picked up steam when Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers all came out within a year of each other.

With Phase 2 of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe kicking off in a few months with Iron Man 3, I’ve been wanting to prepare and learn about all the new characters that will be on screen. With Phase 1, I knew the backstories of all the characters but this time around things are getting a little more obscure.

Phase 2 Character Guides

So, I decided to do some research on the main new characters in Phase 2 and share it with you all, as well as open it up for discussion. I’m sure there are plenty of comic book nerds out there who can point us in the right direction as far as what we should read before seeing the new movies. These won’t be histories or biographies. Think of them more like bibliographies. A collection of stuff I’ve found that should help better understand the characters.

So, throughout the next few months we will be looking at different characters from the next batch of Marvel movies, which are:
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Alex Deligiannis is a friend of the site, having designed our awesome Sasquatch, the logo for our Bubble Pipe Podcast Network, and generally being a cool dude. Recently Alex started posting one sketch a day on Instagram, and I knew right away I had to post another Instagram Roundup to show off some of his art.

He got my attention with some TMNT sketches, including badass new versions of Bebop and Rocksteady. I asked if he’d ever drawn Leatherhead, and he came through in one of his sketches soon after. I love checking Instagram and finding a new sketch every day, and you should follow @AlexDeligiannis or check out the hashtag #DeliDoodle to follow his progress.

He’s had series of Mario, TMNT, Street Fighter, and Avengers sketches, and they’re all awesome. He’s still pretty early in the project, and there’s months of great art to look forward to. You can follow Alex on Instagram, Twitter, or on his blog.