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Batman Omnibus Reading Order!

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Today is Batman Day! One of the most popular comic book characters, Batman needs no introduction. Since his first appearance in May 1939, the Caped Crusader has investigated crimes of various natures, ranging from murder and theft to supernatural occurrences. Originally conceived as an heir to the pulp heroes, Batman has evolved over time, gradually softening and refining into the hero we know today.

The world of Batman expanded with more team-ups, new villains and allies, and iconic stories. His adventures have been chronicled in ongoing series, annuals, miniseries, maxiseries, one-shots, graphic novels, and every other format imaginable. Over the years, DC Comics has collected many of these tales, story arcs, crossovers, and runs in various formats, including the famous Omnibus line.

With a growing collection of Omnibus editions dedicated to Batman (and his extended family), we have decided to create a specific Batman Omnibus Reading Order. This guide can serve as a roadmap to explore the world of the Dark Knight, helping both new and seasoned readers discover more about the World’s Greatest Detective!

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Daredevil by Frank Miller Reading Order (with Elektra, of course!)

Young Frank Miller wasn’t working at Marvel for very long when he saw an opportunity to do a crime comic with Daredevil. After drawing two issues of Spectacular Spider-Man guest-starring Daredevil, he requested to work on the Daredevil title. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect, as artist Gene Colan wanted to leave Daredevil. While Miller hadn’t yet proven his ability to handle a regular commitment at this stage, as he remembers in The Comics Journal #70, Marvel took a gamble on him, and it paid off.

However, success didn’t arrive with his first Daredevil issue. Initially, Miller only drew the stories, with Roger McKenzie as the writer (and Klaus Janson as the inker). While both men didn’t always agree on everything, they worked well together and conspired to “steal away as many Spider-Man villains as we could.” But sales weren’t improving. Things turned around with the arrival of Denny O’Neil as editor on the title. Following a backup story written by Miller, O’Neil put the artist on writing duties, and the rest is history.

Influenced by Will Eisner, Gil Kane, Harvey Kurtzman, and film techniques, Miller made a name for himself through his care for research and his exploration of darker themes—violence being a major theme of his Daredevil run. He also decided to emphasize that Matt Murdock was a Catholic, as, for him, “only a Catholic could be a vigilante and an attorney at the same time.” (The Men Without Fear: Creating Daredevil, 2003 documentary). He took the time to clearly define the parameters of Daredevil’s powers to make them more believable. He added some martial arts to Daredevil’s fighting skills and introduced Elektra in Daredevil #168 in his first issue as main writer. As Klaus Janson put it, the arrival of Elektra was “the culmination of Frank’s intent to rebuild Daredevil and his supporting cast.”

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DC Compact Comics: Your Guide to the Upcoming Graphic Novel Releases (2024-2025)

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A group of comic book covers from the DC Compact Comics Edition. The titles include "Batman: Hush", "The Court of Owls Saga", "Joker", and "Catwoman"

Following in the footsteps of French publisher Urban Comics and its ‘Urban Nomad’ collection, DC Comics has recently started to release a new line of graphic novels called DC Compact Comics. The concept? A new-reader-friendly collection at a good price that you can take with you everywhere!

What is the DC Comics Compact Edition?

Launched in June 2024 with the ultimate classic DC Comics (and best-seller of all time!) Watchmen, the new DC Compact Comics line is designed to appeal to prose and manga readers with a smaller format than the traditional 6 5/8″ x 10 3/16″. Featuring a 5.5″ x 8.5″ standard book trim—the most widely circulated softcover size in the US—DC wants to attract new readers by offering iconic stories in a more portable and affordable format. With a price point of $9.99, these compact editions deliver a full-color self-contained, best-selling DC stories that you can take with you everywhere!

Spanning stories from many genres, such as science fiction, thrillers, horror, fantasy, adventure, and mystery, the DC Compact Comics line will introduce readers to Green Lantern Sojourner “Jo” Mullein with Far Sector, a sci-fi murder mystery on the other side of the universe, or revisit the myth of Superman with the multiple-award-winning All-Star Superman. While the emphasis is put on self-contained stories, the release of American Vampire Book One shows that the collection isn’t limited to one-off tales but also serves as an opportunity to collect long-running series.Read More »DC Compact Comics: Your Guide to the Upcoming Graphic Novel Releases (2024-2025)

Criminal Reading Order, The Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’ Celebrated Comics

Originally published by Marvel Comics’ Icon imprint before being moved to Image Comics, Criminal is a long-running creator-owned comic book series by writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips (the duo behind Reckless). It has become the most prominent independent crime comic of the last twenty years.

Launched in 2006, Criminal started as a ten-issue series before coming back in multiple formats through the years, from graphic novel to one-shot. Every storyline works as a standalone story that takes place in a much larger narrative–mostly articulated around the Lawless Family and the mob boss Sebastian Hyde.

As a crime comic series, Brubaker and Phillips’ creation explores the many forms of the genre. In an interview with Tom Spurgeon at the launch of the series, Brubaker stated “The kinds of stories we’ll be putting all these characters through, though, run the gamut from the heist caper, to the revenge story, to the man on the run story, and even beyond that to the sort of meta-noir innocent man caught in a web of crime story.” That’s exactly what they did.

Eighteen years later, we have a collection of books, stories that were not written or published in chronological order, featuring a group of recurring characters whose lives we discover through dark and violent events. The following guide is here to help you find the stories you may have missed and to offer multiple ways to read them.

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Deathlok Reading Order, Marvel’s Deadly Cyborgs

Not to be confused with DC’s Deadshot or Deathstroke, Deathlok is a Marvel Comics character. In fact, it’s the codename of more than one character. The First one was created by cartoonist Rich Buckler in Astonishing Tales #25 (he plotted and pencilled it, Doug Moench wrote the script and suggested the name), in 1974, the same year as The Punisher and Wolverine. Marvel was into violent warriors at the time and The Six Million Dollar Man TV Show had popularized the concept of a cyborg just a few months earlier.

Known at first as Deathlok the Demolisher, Luther Manning was an American soldier who was killed and subsequently brought back to life by Simon Ryker who transformed him into a cyborg. This takes place in a dystopian future: 1990. He escaped Ryker’s control and fought against him, up until the end of his Astonishing Tales run when he was sent back in time to the regular Marvel timeline. This was only the beginning for him as he got to meet other Marvel heroes, and eventually went back to his timeline.

Manning was just the first. Through the years, Michael Collins, Jack Truman, Rebecca Ryker, Henry Hayes, and Jemma Simmons used the “Deathlok” identity. They mostly followed the same route, dead humans reanimated as cyborgs.

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Plastic Man Reading Order

Launched as a minor feature in Police Comics #1 in 1941 (originally published by Quality Comics and later acquired by DC Comics), Plastic Man is a creation of artist and writer Jack Cole. He initially thought of a character named the Indian Rubber Man, inspired by sideshow freaks, but Everett Arnold–who was the founder of Quality Comics–suggested naming the character after that material that was all the rage at the time.

According to Art Spiegelman, who profiled Cole for The New Yorker magazine, in 1943, when Plastic Man expanded into his own book, Cole explained the morphing hero to new readers: “If you should see a man standing on the street and reaching into the top window of a sky-scraper…that’s not astigmatism—it’s Plastic Man!… If you happen upon a gent all bent up like a pretzel…don’t dunk him…it’s Plastic Man! All this and bouncing too, you’ll see when the rubber man and his pal Woozy Winks gamble their lives in—The Game of Death.”

This is the story of Patrick “Eel” O’Brian, a lowlife gangster. While committing a robbery, he was accidentally doused by some unnamed acid. Nursed back to health by a reclusive order of monks, Eel became a new man. He now had stretching abilities that defied the laws of physics and, inspired by the teaching of the monks, he was now ready to put his criminal past behind him to protect the law–he first helped the police force and later became a special agent for the F.B.I.

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Marvel’s Dracula Reading Order

In 1972, as the Comics Code started to loosen and Stan Lee became Marvel’s Publisher, making Roy Thomas the new editor-in-chief, Marvel launched new horror titles like Ghost Rider, The Man-Thing, Werewolf by Night, and The Tomb of Dracula.

Written by Gerry Conway, plotted by Roy Thomas, and drawn by Gene Colan (who fought to get this assignment), The Tomb of Dracula #1 introduced the famous vampire created by author Bram Stoker into the Marvel Universe. The concept seduced the readers, but the writing not that much. Conway rapidly left the book, Archie Goodwin then Gardner Fox took over for only two issues each before Marv Wolfman assumed the writing duties and received critical success–he also introduced Blade and other vampire hunters.

Like most of Marvel’s horror books, The Tomb of Dracula was not part of the Marvel Universe until issue #44 which was a crossover with Doctor Stange (concluding in issue #14 of the Sorcerer Supreme’s series). The series ended with over-sized issue #70 but was quickly revived as a black & white magazine. That didn’t last.

Some of The Tomb of Dracula‘s characters came back in regular Marvel books like Doctor Strange. Dracula himself reappeared with Rachel Van Helsing in 1982 in Chris Claremont’s X-Men. Then in 1991, The Tomb of Dracula was revived for a 4-part miniseries. A few years later, Dracula came back in more Marvel series. Since then, he occasionally appeared in stand-alone stories or full storylines, finding a place in the Marvel Universe.

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Naruto Universe Manga Order (with Boruto and Light Novels)

While Eikichi Onizuka wants to become the world’s greatest teacher, Naruto Uzumaki aspires to become Hokage! Created by Masashi Kishimoto, the ninja adventures of Naruto started in 1999 in the magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump. Naruto is then a turbulent but ambitious 12-year-old ninja in training whose determination and enthusiasm compensate for his shortcomings.

While Naruto presents himself as a carefree and optimist person capable of befriending anyone, his life is already marked by tragedy and secret: the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox–a malevolent creature that attacked Konohagakure, Naruto’s village– was sealed away in his body when he was just a baby, with his parents sacrificing themselves in the process. Naruto grew up an orphan, ignoring who his parents were, and openly ostracised and resented by many villagers for containing the beast that took many lives.

But nothing will stop Naruto on his track. The boy is determined to obtain respect from his peers and to become the greatest ninja with the help of his teammates, Sasuke and Sakura, facing many obstacles and Big Bads along the way. Naruto became one of the most popular manga, leading to a media franchise including the very successful anime television series, films, video games, toys, and several spin-offs!

Following is a guide to navigating the manga world of Naruto, with the spin-off Boruto, a few other manga spin-offs and many light novels!

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Elongated Man Reading Order (Ralph Dibny)

In The Flash #112 published in 1960, writer John Broome and penciler Carmine Infantino told the story of how The Flash went after Elongated Man, suspecting him of being behind multiple crimes. It turns out that he was framed. In fact, he is the opposite of a criminal, he is a superhero detective and his secret identity is Ralph Dibny.

Well, everybody quickly learned who was Ralph Dibny as he was one of the first to publicly reveal who he really was behind the costume. He’s also one of the only superheroes to get married. But he rarely starred in his own series–however, he had a lot of backup stories in Detective Comics.

Apparently, editor Julius Schwartz didn’t know at the time that DC Comics had the rights to Plastic Man when Ralph was created (also, Superman’s pal Jimmy Olsen had been Elastic Lad for a time, so no “Elastic” for Ralph). What Schwartz wanted was a new supporting hero and the one he got was not that serious about being a hero.

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Rocket Raccoon Reading Order

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During the 1970s, Marvel expanded its offer with magazines. One of them was the black and white “Marvel Preview” in which Bill Mantlo started the science-fiction serial “The Sword in the Star.” The story was about a character named Prince Wayfinder of the planet Ithacon who was searching for a mythical sword. This didn’t last long, only two chapters were published, but the second one published in Marvel Preview #7 in 1976 introduced an anthropomorphic character who’s quite popular now, the famous Rocket Raccoon.

At the time though, in this story drawn by Keith Giffen (his first professional comic book job), he was called Rocky. A fan of the Beatles, Mantlo was inspired by their 1968 song “Rocky Raccoon” from the White Album which is a cowboy story. Elements of the song were also used for Rocket’s second appearance equipped with rocket-powered skates and laser pistols, in The Incredible Hulk #271 (published in 1982). That’s when it was explained that his real name was Rocket. After his team up with the Hulk, Rocket Raccoon starred in his first miniseries and then made a few apparitions next to other heroes. Nothing of note for a long time.

It really was during the Annihilation: Conquest crossover that Rocket Raccoon found its place in the Marvel Universe, with the Guardians of the Galaxy. He went from law officer from the planet Halfworld to military tactician protecting the Universe.

Now, let’s explore the comic books featuring Rocket Raccoon with this reading order!

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