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Reading Order

Where to Start Reading X-Men Comics? An Introduction to the X-Universe

X-Men were the first Marvel superheroes I read. I remember picking up the latest release from the shelf, which turned out to be the conclusion of a storyline! From then on, I started exploring the X-Men’s history, following their contemporary adventures and tracking down older stories — from Chris Claremont’s run to the many spin-offs, limited series and maxi-series (I loved Cable back then!).

These days, it’s easier than ever to get into reading good X-Men comics thanks to the different collected editions, which explore the many eras of the mutants’ history. But with over 60 years’ worth of stories, it can also be hard to know where to start!

So, where should you start? The X-Men are a big family with many characters and various types of adventures. Whether you prefer the old comic book styles of the ’80s, epic modern stories, high-concept ideas, or personal and intimate tales, there’s an X-Men comic for you!

To help you find the perfect one, here’s a curated beginner’s guide with several routes you can take to read some great X-Men stories!

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The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Reading Order (Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill)

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Written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Kevin O’Neill, the first volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics was published in 1999 under America’s Best Comics. During the following two decades, more volumes would eventually be released by other publishers. There were limited series, spin-offs, and several prose and illustrated appendices, all forming a single, interlinked continuity.

The story begins in London in 1898, at the waning of the Victorian era. As the nineteenth century gives way to the twentieth, the British Empire stands at a crossroads. In response to threats beyond the reach of conventional authority, a covert team is assembled from figures drawn from nineteenth-century literature: adventurer Allan Quatermain; Mina Murray, survivor of Dracula; Captain Nemo of the Nautilus; Dr. Henry Jekyll and his monstrous alter ego Edward Hyde; and Hawley Griffin, the Invisible Man. United as the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, they function as agents of imperial necessity, their abilities matched by deep personal flaws and conflicting ideologies.

Past the first volume, the story expands the scope beyond Victorian England, incorporating an ever-broadening tapestry of literary, pulp, and popular culture references spanning multiple centuries. 

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Serenity/Firefly Reading Order: How to read/watch Joss Whedon’s series?

Created by Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Firefly was a short science fiction space western launched on the Fox network in 2002. Despite being cancelled after only 14 episodes had been produced, Firefly went on to become a cult classic, spawning a film, a short web series, novels, video games, and several comic books.

Five hundred years in the future, humanity has spread across the stars, terraforming planets for colonisation and creating a new frontier reminiscent of the Wild West. Following the Unification War, a conflict between the Union of Allied Planets and the Independent Planets, Malcolm Reynolds became the captain of a run-down transport ship called Serenity. Along with his crew, he tries to make a living on the fringes of society.

Two years after the TV show ended, the film Serenity was released, expanding the Firefly universe! The film was accompanied by The R. Tam Sessions, a series of five promotional videos.

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Kamala Khan Reading Order (Ms. Marvel!)

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When Carol Danvers got her promotion and officially became known as Captain Marvel in 2014, a place opened up for a new Mrs. Marvel. That’s when Kamala Khan became a Marvel superhero. She made a background cameo in Captain Marvel #14 before making her first official appearance in the anthology All-New Marvel Now! Point One #1. Co-created by writer G. Willow Wilson, artists Adrian Alphona and Jamie McKelvie, and editors Sana Amanat and Stephen Wacker, she went on to star in her own solo series shortly afterward. Her arrival marked Marvel’s first Muslim character to lead a comic book series, quickly making her a landmark figure within modern superhero storytelling.

Kamala Khan is a teenager, Pakistani-American, Muslim, and Inhuman with shapeshifting abilities (mostly elongation, shrinking…) from Jersey City. After discovering her power, she assumes the mantle of Ms. Marvel because Carol Danvers was her idol. Of course, she had to learn how to be a superhero, but she quickly joined famous teams such as the Avengers, the Champions, Secret Warriors, and more (she’s quite popular).

She rapidly got her own series and took part in major Marvel events, including Civil War II, Secret Empire, and Outlawed. She’s young, but there’s already a lot to read: several volumes of her solo comic, team books, crossovers, and even adaptations outside of comics—animated appearances, video games, and her 2022 live-action series on Disney+. Also, even if she’s still a fairly new character, Kamala has already been killed and resurrected, coming back to life with a new perspective on the origins of her powers (she’s a mutant now!), a shift that ties her even more directly into Marvel’s evolving X-Men mythology.

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Jennifer Blood Reading Order

Created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Adriano Batista, Jennifer Blood is a vigilante character who made her debut in her own comic book series published by Dynamite Entertainment in 2011. 

Her story will sound slightly familiar to fans of Ennis’s work, as she may be described as the female suburban version of The Punisher (the first issue is even titled “War Journal“). Jessica Blute is the daughter of Sam and Jennifer Blute, members of the violent Blute family. Betrayed by his brothers (Jimmy, Michael, Nicholas, Pete, and Steve), who thought his marriage softened him, Sam was murdered. Pete decided to take care of Jennifer, who learned what really happened to Sam and revealed it through letters to her daughter, who was then at boarding school. After Jennifer took her own life, Jessica disappeared, faking her death during Spring Break.

As Jenny Bell, she spent years training in combat, weapons, espionage, and forgery, preparing to avenge her parents. In college, she met Andrew Fellows, married him, and had two children. Though nearly ready to abandon her mission, the Blutes’ repeated escapes from prosecution pushed her to create her vigilante persona, Jennifer Blood, to go after her uncles one by one. But that’s only the beginning for Jennifer’s bloody journey…

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Injustice Reading Order, A DC Comics Alternate Universe Where Superman Goes Bad

During the past fifteen years, DC Comics has found real success in the video game market, as we have already seen with the Batman: Arkham franchise. However, it’s not the only game to introduce a widely popular alternate version of the DC Universe.

A few years after the release of Batman: Arkham Knight, NetherRealm Studios launched the fighting game Injustice: Gods Among Us in 2013. A comic book series, serving as a prequel to the game, was published beforehand. Initially written by Tom Taylor (and later by Brian Buccellato), the series featured artwork by Jheremy Raapack, Mike S. Miller, Bruno Redondo, Tom Derenick, and others.

We all know that the Joker could blow up the world, and Batman would still not kill him. But what about Superman? Injustice explores what happens when Superman does what Batman would never do and decides to start ruling the world. To be more precise, “when the Man of Steel couldn’t protect those he held most dear, he decided being a hero wasn’t enough. To truly save this world, he would have to abandon his philosophy as the Big Blue Boy Scout and become the ruler he felt humankind needed. Facing a god among men, only one person stands between Superman and ultimate power: the Dark Knight.”

Explore the world of Injustice with our reading order guide to this alternate reality where Superman turns bad!

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Gargoyles Comics – Your Reading Guide to the Stories Beyond The Show

While the DCAU Universe was taking shape in the ’90s, changing the landscape for animated children’s shows, Disney was making its mark with Gargoyles:

One thousand years ago, superstition and the sword ruled. It was a time of darkness. It was a world of fear. It was the age of gargoyles. Stone by day, warriors by night, We were betrayed by the humans we had sworn to protect, frozen in stone by a magic spell for a thousand years. Now, here in Manhattan, the spell is broken, and we live again! We are defenders of the night! We are gargoyles!

While there is no official creator credit, Gargoyles (1994–1997) was developed by former DC Comics editor and Disney director of series development Greg Weisman, co-producer Frank Paur and key writers Michael Reaves and Brynne Chandler (among other writers), and would go on for three seasons, and a total of 78 episodes. The third and last season — untitled The Goliath Chronicles — was unexpectedly ordered and mostly made by a new creative team and is now classified as non-canon.

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The New Ultimate Universe Reading Order

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In 2019, Jonathan Hickman successfully relaunched the X-Men with the Krakoan Age. In 2023, he came back with a miniseries set up to help him do the same with the Ultimate Universe. Ended in 2015 and destroyed by the Secret Wars event (also by Hickman), the original Ultimate Marvel Universe (Earth-1610) still left behind it a few characters, like Miles Morales (Spider-Man), Jimmy Hudson (the son of Wolverine), Aaron Davis (Miles Morales’ uncle), The Maker (evil Reed Richards), and more. 

For the New Ultimate Universe, everything starts with The Maker coming back and setting up his own new alternate universe. He indeed went to Earth-6160 and used time travel to stop the apparition of most superheroes, which allowed him to become the leader of that Earth. However, he was defeated and trapped inside The City, a futuristic infrastructure that will reopen in 24 months. Before that happens, the heroes have to prepare themselves and contend with other menaces, including the secretive Maker’s Council.

As a result, the New Ultimate Universe came with a programmed end. One that was confirmed by Marvel Comics. In April 2026, the last issue will be published. But let’s go back to the reading from the beginning.

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Captain Marvel Reading Order: From Mar-Vell to Carol Danvers

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There are several characters known as Captain Marvel. We are not here to talk about Shazam, but we have to start the story with him. As you may know, Fawcett’s Captain Marvel was enormously popular in the 1940s, outselling even Superman, becoming one of the most successful superheroes of the Golden Age of Comics. His popularity, however, brought legal trouble. In 1941, DC Comics filed a lawsuit against Fawcett Publications, claiming that Captain Marvel was an infringement on Superman. The case dragged on for over a decade, with multiple appeals and shifting rulings.

Ultimately, in 1953, Fawcett agreed to cease publication of its superhero comics, citing declining sales and the high cost of litigation. Captain Marvel disappeared from newsstands for nearly twenty years. DC Comics would later license and eventually purchase the character from Fawcett, reintroducing him in the early 1970s under the title “Shazam!” since by that time, Marvel Comics had legally claimed the trademark “Captain Marvel.”

Marvel’s claim to the name began in 1967, when writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Gene Colan introduced their own Captain Marvel in Marvel Super-Heroes #12. This version, a Kree military officer named Mar-Vell, was created largely to secure the trademark and prevent others from using it. To maintain ownership, Marvel was required to publish a comic featuring the name “Captain Marvel” periodically. As a result, readers have seen a long succession of characters (Mar-Vell, Monica Rambeau, Genis-Vell, Phyla-Vell, Noh-Varr, and Carol Danvers) take up the mantle in various ongoing series, limited runs, team books, and one-shots from the late 1960s to the present day.

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Dawn of DC, The Complete Reading Order

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Building the future, “one hero at a time.” It was DC’s new statement for a new era, Following the restoration of the pre-Crisis infinite Multiverse and the disbandment of the Justice League at the end of the Dark Crisis, and the devastation of the DC Universe by the dispersion of Lazarus Resin across the globe.

While on paper, it sounded like a new start, Dawn of DC was more of a continuation of the Infinite Frontier period. Writers once again continued their runs, such as Chip Zdarsky’s Batman, Tini Howard’s Catwoman, Tom Taylor’s Nightwing, and Phillip Kennedy Johnson’s Action Comics. For new readers who wanted to jump into the DC Universe, this was not ideal, although there was new releases throughout the years to help, from a new Superman by Joshua Williamson to the launch of a new Titans title by Tom Taylor, as they became the world’s premier superhero team for a short time.

This initiative was full of events, including the return of the Justice Society, a summer of nightmares during Knight Terrors, a conflict between Batman and Catwoman in Gotham War, a global threat in Titans: Beast World, and Superman facing the House of Brainiac. During all this time, the superhero community was threatened by the ambitious Amanda Waller, who was working her way towards more power in order to enact a crazy plan and redefine the DC Universe, culminating in Absolute Power!

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