I follow mainstream comics out of curiosity but I'm not interested or paid enough to buy them. Marvel seems more interesting than DC and their universe reboot looks a lot more well planned and creative than anything DC has done since CoIE, which is gasp for air as the industry shrinks and drowns in an inability to bring in new readers to match the movies' popularity. Marvel the comic book company is gasping for air too but they're buoyed by some Disney movies or toy licensing or something.

I'm with rd95 on the creator owned thing. I've read about 90% of Brian Vaughn's work and it's generally awesome. I can't recommend Pride of Baghdad or Ex Machina enough. I was kinda lukewarm to Y: The Last Man but I'm an outlier. His Runaways run is awesome too if you want to stick with Marvel. It's "his gift to the Marvel Universe" which Marvel doesn't seem to appreciate from what I understand they've done with the characters.

Image and Dark Horse are where it's at for actual storytelling instead of just shuffling shit around only to put it back the way it was shortly. I also have a soft spot for Top Shelf since they're local to me and I've heard their publisher speak. He very much understands the medium, what makes it unique and uses that to make books that are often heartfelt and mature (and not in the Marvel MAX way).

I really like comics, they were my first books, I want to like superheroes but can't do it for the monthly stuff that comes out. I could probably write a pseudo intellectual tract on why they're an important part of modern culture but it's been done.