DC whu?

][cEMAN**

I've always been a Marvel follower, with a bit of Image thrown in for good measure - just my roots. DC has always scared me because of how disjointed it's seemed with reboots over the years. That was always because when I was younger I didn't know about TPBs, and I don't think there even were that many about. Times have changed. If I wanted to go read the whole spawn series, I could buy a few books and have it all infront of me, rather than collecting all of the issues.

DC isn't that straight forward though is it? Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The flash - I wanted to jump in there somewhere, but recently standing in Forbidden planet I was looking through the TPBs and finding it hard to find any continuity in even the series'd TPBs. Looking at the Blackest night set, and reading the infromation on the back, I couldn't even tell if they were different takes on the same story, or a sequence, and if they were a sequence, in which order to read them. It was frustrating.

So I spotted the Batman thread on where to jump in there, and I thought the same applies to me. I'm obviously not going to go and buy thousands of back issues to catch up (i'd love to but I wouldn't have the time to read it all), but i'd like to get in on some of the major story lines in continuity.

Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, and the Flash. Could anyone list any TPBs that would guide me through each of these characters, through Final Crisis, through Zero Hour, through Crisis on Infinite Earths, and through Blackest night etc.

I know it's a lot, but I walked away with empty hands because I was so bewildered as where to start.

Paul P Byrne

DC is a hard nut to crack but there are some land mark storys. For superman Morrison's all star superman is hard to beat as well as Mark Millar's red son, Morrison also did a great job on JLA and as far as I know they are all collected. Jeoff Johns green lantern run starting with rebirth is great stuff and you cant beat Ed Brubakers Gotham Central for crime noir, not main stream super hero but no harm there, also on that front is ex machina and starman two great runs and all available in trade. Not so sure about the flash always found him a bit harder to get into, I don't think there are any great storys not that I can think of anyway. Oh and kingdom come is also a great read but beware some knowledge of the DCU is advisable when reading this.

Ridley

I can do you a Geoff Johns Green Lantern one:

Rebirth
No Fear
Revenge of the Green Lanterns
Wanted: Hal Jordan
Sinestro Corps War 1
Sinestro Corps War 2
Secret Origin
Rage of the Red Lanterns
Agent Orange
Blackest Night/Blackest Night: Green Lantern

That was my jumping on point. BL Green Lantern intersects/runs alongside the main story in Blackest Night. I guess Brightest Day and BD: Green Lantern will be similar.

Mr. K

The DCU is a bit strange alright. I got into Batman and Superman about 6 years ago.

For Superman, I picked up the Death of Superman series (and tried to bare the 90s-ness of it all) and then randomly chosen more recent TPBs.

For Batman, I got the Knightfall series, then jumped to Hush and read most of the stuff from then on.

Ridley's GL reading order is similar to how I read.

Regarding the wider DCU, I've just read the various Crises stories.

][cEMAN**

I think i'm going to have to order a few of these, because I couldn't find most of them when I went to my closest Forbidden Planet.

I picked up Batman Year One there, and then Superman Brainiac, and The Flash Rebirth both from Easons.

Been an issue by issue collector for years, but I think i'm just going to switch over to TPBs - more story, less fill.

Ridley

You picked up the wrong Rebirth!

(Flash: Rebirth
Blackest Night
Blackest Night: Black Lantern Corps 2
Brightest Day 1 not out yet
Dastardly Death of the Rogues not out yet)

][cEMAN**

At the time, I was in the shop looking at Green Lantern Rebirth looking to buy it but noticing the £60 price tag on it rather than get the non special edition for about £10.

And something I noticed (because Flash Rebirth had part of it covered in a recent DC mutli comic I picked up for the sake of looking at multiple titles cheaply to test them out), that the TPBs miss quite a few pages. I guess I was naive to think you'd get everything in them.

Ridley

I'm a trade-waiter myself... What's on the pages that are missing?

][cEMAN**

Well either it's missing, or it's more added that wasn't meant to be from another story.

I picked up one of those UK multi book comics that had the flash on it and I think the first part of the rebirth story. It fleshed out the backstory on his mothers death, and later on it gave more pages to the whole 'in case of the return of the flash, break glass'. Had about 4 pages to it I think, with a single page showing a large sheet of glass with that written on it.

I don't have it to hand to describe it exactly. Maybe it was from an issue after the rebirth story, but it had Barry still wondering who killed his mother. It seemed out of order, as in the rebirth TPB it had the rogues page at the end of the book, not at the end of the first part.