Marvelhas established itself undeniably as one of the two biggest powerhouses in the comic book industry, and their cinematic side was and arguably still is the biggest name in film. With television, action figures, video games, and way more, theircharacters and brands are everywhereand seem to find success in most avenues. One of the more interesting forms of mass media thatMarvelhas staked a claim in is non-comic books.
All the way back to their first initial comic boom in the 1960s, Marvel has also produced literary prose novels, ditching the vibrant art of a comic to instead give authors a way higher word count to tell stories with Marvel characters. They’ve toyed with alternate canons, retellings of popular comic runs, books that share a universe with their comic counterparts, and even a memoir written entirely by a fictional character. While these projects have never hit the mainstream culture as hard as Marvel Comics and MCU movies, they are still a blast to read through and well worth exploring.
10Look Out for the Little Guy
The Autobiography of the MCU’s Ant-Man, Scott Lang
The incredible true story of an ex-con turned world-saving Super Hero.Look Out for the Little Guyis the only current MCU movie tie-in book. It is an in-universe memoir written by Scott Lang, otherwise known as Ant-Man. It is his story in his own words, told as a pseudo-satirical send-up of self-help books and influencer-of-the-week memoirs.
The ghostwriter here never breaks character, fully committing to writing like Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang and writing as if he lives in the universe from the movies. It’s a breezy, funny read, that also takes some real shots at being earnest and inspiring as it deals with fatherhood and what it means to be a “hero.”
9Deadpool: Paws
Deadpool vs Giant Puppy Monsters
This action-comedy hybrid is exactly what readers would expect from a Deadpool novel. The plot is an overly silly romp about puppies that are turned into giant monsters, with Deadpool somehow being the only hero who can stop them.
The real selling point here isgetting to experience Deadpoolin a new format. Just like with comics and film, the character is completely aware that he’s in a story and consistently breaks the fourth wall. This leads to a plethora of meta jokes about the fact that he is in a novel with no pictures. He even talks directly to the author of the book, like they are some sort of co-writers. For fans of Deadpool’s specific brand of humor, this book delivers in spades.
8X-Men: Codename Wolverine
An Anthology of X-Men Files Delving Into Wolverine’s Past and Present
This is the first of a handful of story collections to make the list, but this one has a specific and interesting gimmick for an anthology. It features stories about Wolverine and some of the other X-Men, but they are separated into two sections called “the then” and “the now.”
The “then” storyline is a covert 80’s mission involvingMystique, Wolverine, Sabretooth, and Black Widowtaking on the KGB. The “now” story is set in the present day (2000, when the book was written) and bounces around the characters as ghosts of their past resurface, and the actions of the “then” narrative cause ripple effects.
7Incredible Hulk: What Savage Beast
Bruce Banner and Hulk’s Risky Experiment to Save His Marriage
This Hulk tale from the late 90s is considered one of the best stories about the character ever written. Author Peter David wrote about Hulk a number of times and used the extra word count of a novel over a comic to dig deeper into the psyche of the scientist-turned-raging monster.
This story has an emotional core, as it is centered around Banner’s love, Betty, revealing she’s pregnant. The book is a genre-bender. The Banner and Betty sections area dramatic love story, there’s a militaristic thriller happening as the government relentlessly hunts after them, and there are even some horror elements to when the Hulk comes out.
6Five Decades of the X-Men
Stan Lee’s Five Short Stories From Five Different Decades
This collection of short stories tells five separate tales of the X-Men, each set in a separate decade. It is a great read for anyone who wants to watch an iconic team evolve in a meta way instead of in a narrative way. The Stories do not share any kind of continuity, meaning each one is designed to be a standalone look at what the X-Men were like, up to, and stood for during different eras. It features a story set in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s.
Stories centered around the X-Menhave always been about conflicting ideologies and figuring out how to move forward in a society of moral grays. This collection works as a fun light reading of classic hero tales but has a far more interesting subtext as it attempts to convey the metaphors of older X-Men stories and deal with the social expectations that were influencing pop culture during each of the separate decades.
5X-Men: Soul Killer
The X-Men’s Excalibur Team Fight Gothic Villains
Many of the Marvel novels attempt to dig deeper into the minds of famous characters or tell a story that maybe couldn’t be done through a conventional comic run, but this one is just a chaotic good time that for reasons unknown was done as a prose novel.
When Rogue is kidnapped by a powerful demon, the X-Men team up with the team of heroes known as Excaliber to go after her. It’s an epic journey through a Gothic landscape and a new powerful villain gets in the X-Men’s way.None other than Count Dracula.
4The Harrowing of Doom: A Marvel Untold Novel
Super-Science and Sorcery Blend as Doom Battles Hell Itself
This novel, from Marvel’sUntoldseries, is focused on one of themost famous and powerful villainsfrom the Marvel universe. Doctor Doom’s backstory is a wild one, filled with science and magic, but one of the underrated pieces of his lore is that his mother made a pact with an evil demon, introducing magic into his life for the first time and sentencing herself to an eternity in Hell.
This functions as Doom’s primary motivation for accumulating power, learning magic, and trying to invent inter-dimensional travel. This novel goes deep into this part of Doom’s story, specifically his attempts to rescue his mother from Hell and how every failure pushes him to look for more power.
3Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours
Spider-Man Battles the Ancients, and His Marriage
Novelist Jim Butcher has amassed decades of fame for his work in the sci-fi space, with his most well-known work being the fantasy detective seriesThe Dresden Files, but in 2006 he got a shot at writing one of the most popular characters of all time. It’s always interesting when an established name gets an opportunity to write for a classic hero, andDarkest Hoursis no exception, as Butcher takes The Rhino, a typically downplayed villain, and builds him into a genuine threat.
With it being a novel,Darkest Hoursalso has far more room than a comic to dig into theyouthful melodrama that often makes a Spider-Man storymemorable. There is a love triangle between Peter Parker, Mary Jane, and the mysterious Black Cat that works as the emotional through-line for the entire book.
2Guardians of the Galaxy: Rocket Racoon & Groot Steal The Galaxy!
A Galaxy-Wide Chase for Rocket and Groot
Dan Abnett might just be the king of writing novels about popular universes. HisWarhammerbooks are considered some of the best that the world has to offer, so it makes sense that he would get a crack at Marvel’s beloved sci-fi team.
The plot of this one is pretty straightforward for a Rocket and Groot story. They steal something that turns out to be incredibly powerful and a big pool of people want it for themselves. It’s consistently fun and action-packed, with a revolving door or space dwellers chasing the duo across the entire galaxy as they try to uncover what they even stole and why it is so dangerous.
1X-Men: Mutant Empire
A Trilogy of Novels Detailing Magneto’s Conquering of Sentinels
Maybe it’s cheating to call this the best Marvel novel, as it is technically three novels, but the 90s trilogy was reissued in 2019 as one big book, so anyone looking to grab a copy now will likely be reading it all together. The plot is pretty familiar X-Men material. The government wants to create sentinels to watch over mutants, but naturally, this technology falls into the hands of Magneto, who just might be able to use it against all of humankind.
The three books,Siege, Sanctuary,andSalvationare especially worth pursuing as they aren’t retreads of famous comic stories. Instead, they are original works that also perfectly align with what the X-Men comic writers were doing in the 90’s.
