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Yelena Belova Reading Order (Black Widow, White Widow)

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Yelena Belova is now part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, since the film Black Widow (2021), where Florence Pugh portrays her. She appeared in the first season of Hawkeye and she will soon return in a Thunderbolts movie, announced for 2025.

What about the comic book version? Created by Devin Grayson and J.G. Jones, Yelena Belova made her first appearance in the Marvel pages at the end of the ’90s in Inhumans v2 #5. Trained as a spy and assassin in the Red Room, she is first a foe of Natasha Romanova and has also used The Black Widow name.

She has been, during all these years, a member of S.H.I.E.L.D., Vanguard, HYDRA, and the High Council of A.I.M. Thanks to her part in the MCU, Yelena found herself under the spotlight in the comics, and recently opt to assume the identity of White Widow.

Despite not having a lot of appearances, her story is quite convoluted, as she’s been presumed dead on multiple occasions and clones of her exist.

So where to start with Yelena? Let’s dive into her complicated history with this reading order!

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Final Crisis Reading Order, a DC Comics Event by Grant Morrison

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Final Crisis Reading Order

Coming from Grant Morrison, Final Crisis is a crossover event published by DC Comics in 2008, during the post-Crisis era. If you are familiar with most of Grant Morrison’s work in the DC Universe, you know how much he loves to explore the past and, in his own way, to try to make sense of most of it, even if it often ends up hard to follow. That said, Final Crisis is a mostly self-contained story.

Final Crisis deals with alien villain Darkseid’s plot to overthrow reality, and the subsequent death and corruption of various DC characters and their universe. Here is the official synopsis: Using the soul-destroying Anti-Life Equation, Darkseid is remaking the heroes, villains, and everyday people of Earth in his dark image … and destroying the very fabric of reality itself in the process. Now superheroes from around the world—and across the Multiverse—must make a last, desperate stand against the forces of Anti-Life. Will Earth endure? And when the Crisis reaches its climax, who will make the ultimate sacrifice?

What to read before Final Crisis?

A lot of mostly nothing—you can go with DC Universe #0 and then the main event. If you want to be more thorough there’s a lot to read. You can begin with Death of the New Gods, then go to 52 volume #1 (collects 52 #1-26), 52 volume #2 (collects 52 #27-52), Seven Soldiers by Grant Morrison.

To stay in what was published before the event, connecting directly to Final Crisis, here is a list:

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Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy Reading Order, a Marvel/Spider-Man event

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Taking place in 2017, after the Civil War II event (no need to read it here, but reading order here anyway), Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy is a Spider-Man story written by Dan Slott, with Christos Gage, and Jim Cheung is the artist.

For more details, here is the official synopsis: Amidst a gauntlet of his deadliest rogues, an old foe returns to the fore. Loved ones lost are dead no more as Peter Parker plunges headlong into The Clone Conspiracy! The Jackal has returned, more driven and determined than ever. He’s offered Spidey’s greatest rogues a chance to reunite with their loved ones in exchange for loyalty.

But to what end? With the Rhino, the Lizard, Electro, and even Doctor Octopus at his side, things are looking bleak. But who else from Spider-Man’s past has reappeared?!

What to read before Dead No More: The Clone Conspiracy?

It’s probably too much to say that you should probably start with the first Clone Saga (full reading order). It’s a big read (too big). That said, the last time we saw Jackal was during the Superior Spider-man era — it’s a really good read –, but it’s still not a necessity. Like it’s not an obligation to read The Spider-Verse Event (full reading order), but if you want to know what happened to Kaine, that’s where you should go.

Though, what you need to read to be up-to-date is:

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Invincible Comic Reading Order, a superhero universe by Robert Kirkman (with Capes, Brit, The Astounding Wolf-Man, Tech Jacket)

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Created by writer Robert Kirkman (famous for The Walking Dead) and artist Cory Walker, Invincible is an Image Comics Universe superhero, and now a massively popular TV Show on Amazon Prime Video.

Real name Mark Grayson, Invincible is just like most everyone else his age. He’s a senior at a normal American high School. He has a crappy part-time job after school and on weekends. He likes girls quite a bit… but doesn’t quite understand them. He enjoys hanging out with his friends, and sleeping late on Saturdays… at least until the good cartoons come on.

The only difference between Mark and everyone else is that his father is Omni-Man, an extraterrestrial superhero of the Viltrumite race, the most powerful superhero on the planet, and as of late, he seems to be inheriting his father’s powers. This sounds okay at first, but how do you follow in your father’s footsteps when you know you will never live up to his standards?

Luckily, his dad is around to show him the ropes, at least he WOULD be if he weren’t so busy saving the world all the time. Invincible is forced to go out on his own, and try and figure out how all this superheroing business works. The results are a monumental disaster, at least until he gets the hang of it.

Invincible has links with Eric Larsen’s Savage Dragon, which has been mostly downplayed in favor of Invincible’s own continuity.

Read More »Invincible Comic Reading Order, a superhero universe by Robert Kirkman (with Capes, Brit, The Astounding Wolf-Man, Tech Jacket)

The Culling: Rise of the Ravagers Reading Order, a New 52 crossover story arc

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The Culling: Rise of the Ravagers Reading Order

A crossover storyline coming from writer Scott Lobdell and Tom DeFalco, The Culling: Rise of the Ravagers involved three titles from the DC New 52 line-up: Teen Titans, Legion Lost, and Superboy.

Here is the official synopsis: The Culling is upon us! The Teen Titans finally came together during their assault on Project N.O.W.H.E.R.E.’s headquarters, but Superboy, Red Robin, Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Solstice, and Skitter’s newfound alliance is met with instant adversity. Finding themselves a mile underneath N.O.W.H.E.R.E.’s Antarctic base, the forces behind this nefarious organization surface in the form of the monstrous Harvest.

Now trapped in a deadly arena where young teen metahumans must fight each other to the death for survival, also known as The Culling, the Titans and fellow teen superteam Legion Lost must find a way to escape. Will they be able to coexist long enough to survive? Or to defeat Harvest’s teenage death squad known as The Ravagers?

What to read before The Culling: Rise of the Ravagers?

If you feel like it, you can just read the first issues of each title to have more information, as events taking place leads to this event, especially for Teen Titans and Superboy.

For those you want to explore further:

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Original Sin Reading Order, A Marvel Crossover Event: Who Shot The Watcher?

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Original Sin Reading Order

Written by Jason Aaron with art by Mike Deodato, Original Sin is a Marvel Crossover Event published from April to September 2014. The story began when Uatu, the mysterious space-god who’s been watching mankind from the moon for as long as we can remember … is found dead. But who shot the Watcher?

As the official synopsis reveals, Nick Fury takes the lead of the murder investigation. With the help of the heroes of the Marvel Universe, he must quickly find answers as other forces are marshaling and other questions are arising. Such as why is Black Panther gathering a secret team of his own, including Emma Frost, the Punisher and Dr. Strange? Who is the Unseen? What was stolen from the Watcher’s lair? Fury’s cosmic manhunt leads to the far corners of the universe and beyond, but just when the Avengers think they’ve cornered their murderer … everything explodes, unleashing the Marvel Universe’s greatest secrets and rocking the heroes to their core! What did the Watcher see? What was the Original Sin?

What to read before Original Sin?

The Original Sin event was not one of those long-prepared universe-shattering crossover. In fact, it started quite suddenly. The only thing you’ll need to read is the “Behold the Watcher” story from Point One #1 (collected with the rest of the event).

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

Serenity/Firefly Reading Order

Firefly is an American space Western media franchise created by Joss Whedon. It includes the TV series Firefly, the film Serenity, some novels and multiple comic books.

The series is set in the year 2517, after the arrival of humans in a new star system, and follows the adventures of the renegade crew of Serenity, a “Firefly-class” spaceship. In this future, the only two surviving superpowers, the United States and China, fused to form the central federal government, called the Alliance, resulting in the fusion of the two cultures.

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

Amazing Spider-Man: Last Remains Reading Order, by Nick Spencer

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Amazing Spider-Man: Last Remains Reading Order

“Last Remains” is not an event, but a storyline taking place in the continuity of Nick Spencer’s run on Spider-Man (go to the full reading order). That said, there’s a crossover component to it with a lot of adjacent spider-heros joining the story (like Miles Morales, Gwen “Ghost-Spider” Stacy, Silk, Spider-Woman for example).

Here is the official synopsis: Spider-Man just took the beating of his life … but we’re just getting started. Prepare yourself for the horrors of Last Remains! Kindred—the mystery villain who has been plaguing Peter Parker’s life from the shadows—is stepping out on stage for the first time … and Spider-Man is not ready for the havoc that will result. Now, the wallcrawler must seek out the aid of one of his oldest allies—Doctor Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme. But it’s not going to be enough. In order to take the fight to Kindred, will Peter be forced to consider the unthinkable?

What to read before Amazing Spider-Man: Last Remains?

The “Last Remains” storyline is about a new villain known as Kindred. Nick Spencer did a lot of built up around his mysterious identity. The best way to read “Last Remains” is, of course, by being up-to-date with Spencer’s run.

If you only want to read what can just before, you’ll have to take a look at those:

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Trinity War/Forever Evil Reading Order, a New 52 DC Checklist

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Trinity War/Forever Evil Reading Order DC

At the time (2013–2014), DC presented Trinity War as the first big crossover event of the New 52, but it turned out to be the prologue to Forever Evil, the real first line-wide crossover since the reboot of the DC Universe. For this reason, we tackle those two events together.

First, Trinity War: When the three Justice Leagues go to war with one another, who’s side will everyone be on? Allies will be born, friends will become enemies and the DC Universe will never be the same. 

What to read before Trinity War?

You can take a look at our Justice League New 52 Reading Order to know what came before, but especially:

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Lumberjanes Reading Order (Boom! comics)

Friendship to the Max! Comic book series created by Shannon Watters, Grace Ellis, Noelle Stevenson, and Brooklyn A. Allen, Lumberjanes is published by Boom! Studios

The story takes us at Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types, things are not what they seem. Three-eyed foxes. Secret caves. Anagrams. Luckily, Jo, April, Mal, Molly, and Ripley are five rad, butt-kicking best pals determined to have an awesome summer together…and they’re not gonna let a magical quest or an array of supernatural critters get in their way!

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