DC Universe Infinity

I subscribed to DC Universe back when it had movies. I primarily subscribed for the comics and was thrilled when they expanded the selection. And I'm still loving this new iteration. (although I don't discuss it with my local comic shop guys).

And I love that Paeter loves it! It really is a treasure trove of good reading.

I will second Paeter's pick of Swamp Thing and Animal Man from the New 52 era.
I also suggest from the New 52 era: I, Vampire, Wonder Woman #1-35, and Justice League: Darkseid War (#40-50)

I don't have DC Universe, but I also recommend Darkseid War. It's also nice if you can read the Darkseid War: Power of the Gods tie-ins (even though the Green Lantern one is theologically stupid). They fit in the middle of the main story.

I'm probably going to go back and read a lot of New 52 stuff sometime, but I've got too much Rebirth stuff to catch up on right now to think about it. I read through Hoopla, which one of my local libraries gets me a free subscription to.

Nathan James Norman wrote:
I also suggest from the New 52 era: I, Vampire, Wonder Woman #1-35, and Justice League: Darkseid War (#40-50)  

I'm trying a bit of I, Vampire now because of a Justice League Dark crossover, so I'm looking forward to seeing if I like it!

AGoodReed wrote:

I'm probably going to go back and read a lot of New 52 stuff sometime, but I've got too much Rebirth stuff to catch up on right now to think about it.

Oh man, I'm looking forward to Rebirth, because I already read some Rebirth Titans during my review period and it was SO good to see Wally West back on the scene and reconnecting with his Titans friends.

Despite Linda always being his "lightning rod" in the past, and me really liking that idea, I'm finding that I appreciate the focus on other types of relationships, such as friendships and mentors. And the fact that he has to sort of win his wife's love all over again can serve as a nice parallel for those of us who are married and may fall into the temptation of not pursuing our spouses like we once did.

Hard to be patient, want more Wally, but I'm enjoying the reading track I'm on! Nice to have good stuff to look forward to, though!

Okay. So I've just signed up to DC Universe Infinite!

And with almost 100 years worth of comics to catch up on, I'm feeling just slightly overwhelmed as to where to start.
There's Action Comics #1 of course, (which I actually read on the internet once, but might be fun to follow a few issues of this very early Superman just for historical context)

My favourite character is obviously Superman, but I'm also interested in Flash because of his time-travel abilities.

Paeter has made some great suggestions in his Essential Issues segment, which I'll be going back over to see what he's recommended.
And Nathan and Reed have made a few recommendations up above as well.

What I think I really want to do ultimately, is pick an era and start following along. I'd like to follow an interpretation of Superman from beginning, and see the ongoing serialised story progress, see the character development. Maybe see him progress with Lois toward marriage and even into parenthood.

Should I follow Paeter's lead and read the "New 52" era?
Or is there a better era that I should check out?

Open to all suggestions and/or random thoughts. I think you all have a pretty good idea of my taste when it comes to superheroes and stories in general. I like a serious tone.

I've dipped my toe into comics in the past. Now It's time to dive into the deep end.

Looking back on Essential Issues, it looks like "Superman: Secret Origin" seems like a good place to start.
Still open to everyone's thoughts, though.

AdamCollings wrote:Looking back on Essential Issues, it looks like "Superman: Secret Origin" seems like a good place to start.
Still open to everyone's thoughts, though.

For more of a Superman focus, I'd also recommend A Superman For All Seasons, if its on DCUI.

Paeter wrote:

AdamCollings wrote:Looking back on Essential Issues, it looks like "Superman: Secret Origin" seems like a good place to start.
Still open to everyone's thoughts, though.

For more of a Superman focus, I'd also recommend A Superman For All Seasons, if its on DCUI.

Cool. Thanks. I'll add that to the list.

So having enjoyed Superman: Secret Origin, I researched what I should read next (meaning, what comes next in continuity for this interpretation of Supreman).
The suggestions I found were "Last Son", "Escape from Bizarroworld", "Superman & The Legion of Superheroes" and "Brainiac."

Have started Last Son. Enjoying it, but noticing a lot has changed. Superman and Lois are married. Bizarro is already a part of the story and seems to work for Lex. And then I realise that Last Son was actually published *Before* Secret Origin, even though there seems to be a lot in common with how the characters and world are portrayed.

The deeper I dig in, the more confused I become.

I think that maybe my desire to just follow an era and read all the stories in order is an unrealistic expectation, because I simply don't know how to do that. It's made even harder because some Superman stories don't even say Superman on the cover. There's all these "Action Comics". DC Comics is seeming like an impenetrable Fortress that is actively hostile to newcomers.

But despite that I'm really enjoying reading these stories.

So I think I'll have to change tactics and just read stand-alone recommended stories in isolation. That will include the aforementioned Superman Stories, along with For All Seasons, plus more of the "Essential Issues", maybe looking at origins for all the main Justice League characters.

I'm tempted to document my journey and thoughts as I go on youTube, but I don't know if I have time.

I use ComicBookReadingOrders.com when I want to make sure I follow the right story paths. They're not always 100% accurate, but they've been pretty close. With DC and Marvel stuff, they tend to follow the chronological order of the characters' lives, not the order of when the books were published. So I'm reading through Post-Crisis Batman stuff right now, and I've already jumped back and forth between stuff published in the 80's and stuff published in the 00's.

Here's the Superman page: https://comicbookreadingorders.com/dc/characters/superman-reading-order/

I meant to post this yesterday, but it didn't work out. I didn't realize you'd get through Secret Origin so fast.

Thanks, Reed.
I did have a look at that website, and kind of got even more confused by it, but this chronological character-specific page looks like it'll be really handy. Sure would have helped me last night when I was tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to find the ending to Superman: Last Son.
But I notice right around the time of what I was reading, the page you just gave me says

"At this point,  due to publishing issues,  the continuity for Superman is a bit of a mess for the next 20 issues or so.  Continuity errors are unavoidable."

That explains a lot, and hopefully suggests my experience will be generally better than it was last night.

As for finishing Secret Origins so fast, well, I seem to have been bitten by the bug and may have lost control.



I'm sure it won't always be like this, but I am going to have to adjust my Goodreads goal for the year because it's gonna get filled with comics. Sure, I could simply not log comics, but ... if it's not on Goodreads you didn't read it. Right?

Just started Batman Year One this morning and enjoying it.

AdamCollings wrote:

So I think I'll have to change tactics and just read stand-alone recommended stories in isolation. That will include the aforementioned Superman Stories, along with For All Seasons, plus more of the "Essential Issues", maybe looking at origins for all the main Justice League characters.

I think in DCUI you can also get a list of recommended stories for an individual character. I'll bet they have a ton to recommend for Superman.

The marriage story is a bit hard to track. It happened over a looooong engagement, and Superman might have even died in the middle of that. I'd try some creative googling to find a list someone has put together to follow their relationship from "revealing identity to lois" to "proposing" to "marriage". The reveal and proposal might be pretty close together, and that's sometime in the 90's I think.

Anyway, I'll enjoy hearing what stands out to you! Here or wherever you decide to share about it!

AGoodReed wrote:
Here's the Superman page: https://comicbookreadingorders.com/dc/characters/superman-reading-order/

So here's the first thing I don't understand (maybe you can shed some light)
It says to read "Superman Vol 2 #2"  (one must wonder what happened to #1 though)   and then it says to read "Superman Vol 2 #21"
So .... what happened to #3 to #20 ?
I did a google and "Superman Vol 2 #3" does exist. Is this list just giving recommendations on the best issues?

(I also searched the page and confirmed that these issues don't appear anywhere else in a different order)

AdamCollings wrote:So here's the first thing I don't understand (maybe you can shed some light)
It says to read "Superman Vol 2 #2"  (one must wonder what happened to #1 though)   and then it says to read "Superman Vol 2 #21"
So .... what happened to #3 to #20 ?
I did a google and "Superman Vol 2 #3" does exist. Is this list just giving recommendations on the best issues?

(I also searched the page and confirmed that these issues don't appear anywhere else in a different order)

I think in situations like this, issues #2 and #21 are stand-alone stories that take place around the same time as each other, while issues #3 through #20 are part of a story arc. Issue #1 is probably also a stand-alone that's, or it's part of a story arc that crosses over with Action Comics or some other character's book. That's my educated guess.

When I ran into this problem before, I used to go to Comixology to search for the issue(s) in question. They would show me the issue and what trade paperback(s) it would be available in. But now Comixology is just a part of Amazon, and it's not as in-depth as it was. I haven't found a good alternative, unfortunately.

So I probably should have been working on my podcast today, but instead, I made a video with all of my thoughts on this service so far, my experience breaking into DC as a comics newbie, and mini reviews other books I've read so far.

Just a little brief update (with minor spoilers for late 1980s Superman)

I've been following through the story with the Superman book, post-crisis, dipping into The Adventures of Superman and Action Comics where necessary to continue the big stories. The various reading order lists told me I should go straight to Superman Exile, but it relied on so much backstory I went back and filled in all the stuff before. Glad I did because it made so much more sense when I returned to it. I loved superman Exile. Cool seeing Superman exploring space, and trying to deal with the emotional baggage of having had to kill Zod and his cohorts (honestly, I can hear no more criticisms of Superman killing Zod in Man of Steel, now that I've seen the exact same thing in the comics!)

Now I'm just gonna continue along with those three books, making my way toward the death of Superman, which I've already read a few years ago.

It's fun seeing all the continuity and callbacks to previous stories. And the slow development of Matrix (I know what Matrix will eventually become but it'll be fun to see it happen).
This is exactly what I was hoping for from comics. Long-form story-telling with lots of continuity and character development.

I also have a list to go through for Batman which I'll need to switch over to at some point.

I'm really looking forward to getting to the early 2000s with all the Geoff Johns stories, but for right now, I'm enjoying this post-crisis era. It's looking like the annual subscription is the best $60 I've spent in a long time.

Dude, that's so awesome to hear, Adam! As I just recorded on the podcast, I am SUPER jazzed about DC comics right now. So hearing you are too is great! Especially since you're reading an era that I'd think many modern readers would have trouble with, just because of the more simplistic and dated nature of both the writing and the art. So its surprising and exciting to hear that you're getting a lot out of that era!

It will be interesting to see what characters catch your interest enough to pursue them. With me, I just read the characters that interested me for the first few years. But before long I would get curious about various heroes that would guest star, or be background characters, or be part of a team book, which led me to broaden my exploration and familiarity with the DCU to the point of feeling like I really had my "tendrils" running through most of it. Really getting to know these characters as they grow and change is rewarding and satisfying. It's like a soap opera in that, you can never know it all, but you just jump in somewhere and get to know characters over time, and before long you become really knowledgeable and attached to their ever-changing sagas!

When you reach Grant Morrison's JLA in the late 90's or early 2000's, I'd recommend checking it out, as it provides a nice "tour" of the DC Universe and may help you discover other characters and books you like. Same with the JSA & Teen Titans runs of the early 2000's.

Enjoy, and shoot me an e-mail or start a thread here anytime you want to geek out over comics! I'll be there!

AdamCollings wrote:I also have a list to go through for Batman which I'll need to switch over to at some point.

You should absolutely check out the Batman stories from the 70s by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams. Heavy, serious stuff that paved the way for Batman to be taken seriously. I believe there are several Neal Adams omnibus collections.

And if you've not seen the news, Neal Adams passed away a few days ago from medical complications.

mindspike wrote:You should absolutely check out the Batman stories from the 70s by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams. Heavy, serious stuff that paved the way for Batman to be taken seriously. I believe there are several Neal Adams omnibus collections.

Cool. Thanks for the heads up. I had assumed that everything before Crisis on Infinite Earths was silver age, and therefore silly.
I'll check them out.

mindspike wrote:And if you've not seen the news, Neal Adams passed away a few days ago from medical complications.

I think I did hear about that, but I didn't know who he was, so didn't pay a lot of attention.

AdamCollings wrote:I also have a list to go through for Batman which I'll need to switch over to at some point.

I'm (slowly) going through the post-Crisis Batman stuff using the Comic Book Reading Order list, but it's not as smooth as I'd expected. As I said before, it requires jumping back and forth between stories written in the 80s and 90s, and stories written in the 00s. You start with Year One from 1987, and then you read Batman and the Monster Men and Batman and the Mad Monk from 2005 and 2006, respectively. There's also some continuity errors as far as when the Batmobile was created, and possibly when the Bat Signal started, as well. And there's definitely some inconsistencies regarding Two-Face. I prefer The Long Halloween's take on him to what's presented in Robin: Year One, personally.

I'm on Batgirl: Year One now.