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Black Hammer Reading Order by Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston

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Black Hammer is an American comic book series created by writer Jeff Lemire and artist Dean Ormston, published by Dark Horse Comics. It tells a different kind of superhero story, mixing mythology with elements of mystery and rural drama in a way that explores the psychological and emotional consequences of heroism. A very Twilight Zone take on the genre.

The story begins a decade after an epic battle in which the legendary hero Black Hammer and the other costumed champions of Spiral City, known as the Parazone Defenders, defeated the cosmic entity Anti-God. Despite their victory, the heroes vanished in the aftermath of the fight. To the outside world, they were presumed dead.

In reality, the group became inexplicably trapped in the small, timeless town of Rockwood, a rural community isolated from the rest of existence. Any attempt to leave is met with failure. As a matter of fact, Black Hammer himself died trying. Without a way to escape their confinement, Abraham Slam, Golden Gail, Colonel Weird, Madame Dragonfly, and Barbalien adopt new identities and attempt to lead ordinary lives, struggling with their fading memories, growing despair, and uncertainty about the nature of their imprisonment.

Launched in 2016, the original critically acclaimed Black Hammer comic book series has since expanded into a shared universe through numerous spin-offs and companion series, collectively known as The Hammerverse.

Black Hammer Comics Reading Order

Due to its critical and commercial success, Black Hammer and its related comic book series have been collected in multiple formats by Dark Horse Comics, ranging from standard trade paperbacks to deluxe Library Editions, which feature oversized art and supplemental material.

What is The World of Black Hammer? While the main Black Hammer series revolves around exiled heroes trapped in Rockwood, the World of Black Hammer titles further develop the mythology, history, and secondary characters, including villains, cosmic entities, and legacy heroes. These comics often adopt distinct genres or narrative styles. Each miniseries tells a self-contained story that adds to the overarching continuity of the Black Hammer Universe.

Currently, the most comprehensive collection is the Trade Paperback edition. 

Black Hammer Omnibus Collection

The books in the “Dark Horse Omnibus” collection are at the comic book standard size, and collect what was previously available in two or three TPBs. The Black Hammer Omnibuses are available in hardcover and paperback, while The World of Black Hammer Omnibuses are paperback only (collecting the same as the Library editions).

Black Hammer Library Editions

The Black Hammer Library Editions are deluxe, oversized hardcover volumes. Each volume features new cover artwork, high-quality paper stock, and larger page dimensions that showcase the artwork in greater detail.

Black Hammer Trade Paperback Collection

Everything starts with the Black Hammer series. Trapped in a mysterious small town after saving the world from cosmic annihilation, Spiral City’s greatest heroes (Abraham Slam, Golden Gail, Colonel Weird, Madame Dragonfly, and Barbalien) struggle to live ordinary lives while hiding their true identities. As they yearn for escape and grapple with their fading purpose, a dark secret about their exile begins to surface.

Sherlock Frankenstein and the Legion of Evil, the first Black Hammer spinoff, chronicles the search for the missing heroes from the perspective of Lucy Weber, daughter of Black Hammer.

Originally published as Doctor Star and the Kingdom of Lost Tomorrows (change to Doctor Andromeda for legal reasons), this spin-off miniseries is about a Golden Age superhero and contemporary of Abraham Slam

Relaunched in 2018 under the title Black Hammer: Age of Doom, the series picked up where the previous one ended. After discovering the shocking truth about their confinement in Rockwood, Lucy Weber takes up her father’s mantle as the new Black Hammer. But when she vanishes without a trace, the stranded heroes are once again left searching for answers in a world that seems to rewrite itself around them.

In The World of Black Hammer…

The main Black Hammer story hits pause, and The World of Black Hammer takes over, introducing new characters, stories, and developments that will influence the next big chapter of the saga (Black Hammer Reborn!).

Quantum Age is a spin-off set in 2141. A young Martian must find a way to reform The Quantum League to save the world, while solving the riddle of what happened to the great heroes of the twentieth century.

Black Hammer ’45 is the first Black Hammer story, not written by Jeff Lemire, but by Matt Kindt, which brings us back in 1945, where the Black Hammer Squadron bands together to combat Nazis, a host of occult threats, and their ultimate aerial nemesis, the Ghost Hunter.

Hammer of Justice! A DC Comics/Dark Horse Comics crossover event! A strange man arrives simultaneously on Black Hammer Farm and in Metropolis, and both worlds are warped as Starro attacks! Not considered by everyone as canon to the Black Hammer universe.

In Colonel Weird: Cosmagog, Colonel Randall Weird leaves the Black Hammer Farm and embarks on a strange journey through space and time in search of something he has long forgotten.

In Skulldigger + Skeleton Boy, when the evil Grimjim breaks out of prison, the heart of the city is at stake. Vigilante Skulldigger and his apprentice, Skeleton Boy, will have to fight to save it.

In The Unbelievable Unteens, comic book artist Jane Ito discovers that her creations, a team of teenage misfit superheroes named the Unbelievable Unteens, might be real. She has been visited by one of her characters, leading her to question the nature of her own memories and the reality she inhabits.

Barbalien: Red Planet takes us back to Earth, where Mark Markz is serving as a decorated police officer by day and the beloved superhero Barbalien by night. But amid the AIDS crisis, he is faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges as he attempts to balance these identities, especially when a Martian enemy from his past hunts him down, demanding his life or death.

The following are two graphic novels. In Colonel Weird and Little Andromeda, the space-faring adventurer embarks on a mission to rescue his fellow superheroes, teaming up with the much younger Doctor Andromeda for a series of fantastical escapades across various worlds and dimensions. While The Last Days of Black Hammer is a prequel to the events of Black Hammer volume 1, starring the original Black Hammer and his superhero friends in the days leading up to the battle against the Anti-God.

Black Hammer: Visions is an eight-issue anthology series, an out-of-continuity collection of standalone stories, each penned by a different writer and illustrated by various artists.

Black Hammer Reborn

Black Hammer Reborn‘s Story is set twenty years after the end of the first one. Lucy Weber, the daughter of Black Hammer, has moved on. Living in the suburbs of Spiral City, she is married and has children. For mysterious reasons, she hasn’t picked up the hammer in years. But, as her domestic life begins to crumble, the secrets of the last twenty years, and the reasons Lucy really gave up being Black Hammer, begin to resurface.

After the events of The End, Spiral City enters a new era. While many of its long-lost heroes have returned, rising anti-superhuman sentiment inflamed by recent events and amplified by Malcolm Gold, the former head of T.R.I.D.E.N.T. and current mayoral candidate, casts a shadow over the city’s recovery and the heroes’ reintegration.

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