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DC’s Young Animal is a pop-up imprint launched in 2016 in collaboration with Gerard Way, musician and writer of the Umbrella Academy with the purpose of relaunching characters with a more experimental approach. It gives us four ongoing series: Doom Patrol, Shade the Changing Girl, Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye, and Mother Panic.

In the middle of 2018, those four titles entered in collision with the mainstream DC Universe thanks to the Milk Wars event, a crossover with the Justice League, when the inter-dimensional corporation Retconn hijacked the DC Continuity with the goal to make the whole DC Universe more wholesome.

What to read before Milk Wars?

There is no pre-requisite reading for the Justice League, as the story has no connection with what was happening at the time for our heroes. For them, it doesn’t occupy a particular place in the timeline. That’s not the case for the Young Animals’ characters. The Milk Wars event takes place after volume 2 of each title — Doom Patrol’s story leads directly into the event.

With that said, it is a self-contained event supposedly new reader-friendly. Will it be confusing? Probably, but chances are it’ll still be even with prior reading due to the nature of the story itself.

• Doom Patrol Vol. 2: NadaDoom Patrol Vol. 2: Nada
  Collects Doom Patrol Vol. 6 #7-12
• Mother Panic Vol. 2: Under Her Skin
  Collects Mother Panic #7-12
• Shade, the Changing Girl Volume 2: Little Runaway
  Collects Shade, the Changing Girl #7-13
• Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye Vol. 2: Every Me, Every You
  Collects Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye #7-12

Read More »Milk Wars Reading Order, a DC/Young Animal crossover

Get ready to go to the 853rd Century! DC One Million was a 1998 event written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Val Semeiks set a million issues in the future – meaning, in the 853rd Century 

In this possible future, Earth remains safe, thanks to the heroics of the JLA of the future. The descendants of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, and others remain united in combating forces of evil but perhaps have never met anything as deadly as the sentient super-computer Solaris, the Tyrant Sun. As this villainous threat becomes too much to handle, these heroes of the future turn to the only group they know can help: the original JLA.

The core of the event was a four-issue mini-series, and the thirty-four other series then being published by DC also put out a single issue numbered #1,000,000, which either showed its characters’ involvement in the central plot or gave a glimpse of what its characters’ descendants/successors would be doing in the 853rd century.

What to read before DC One Million?

DC One Million is a stand-alone event, meaning that you don’t need any pre-plot knowledge before diving into it.

It takes place during Grant Morrison’s run (see reading order) and more precisely, after JLA #23, as the final two pages of this issue lead into the story. But, those famous two pages have almost never been included in the several reprints (from JLA: Strength in Numbers trade paperback to the digital version available on ComiXology to even the DC One Million Omnibus hardcover or trade paperback collections). 

If you want to read those two pages (which includes the return of Diana as the team’s Wonder Woman), you will have to get hold of JLA Deluxe Edition Vol. 3 hardcover. 

Read More »DC One Million Reading Order