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Energon Universe Reading Order (Skybound’s Transformers, GI Joe, Voir Rivals…)

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At the end of 2020, IDW lost the license to publish comic books from the Hasbro Universe. Therefore, series like Transformers and G.I. Joe went elsewhere. More precisely, they went to Image Comics via Robert Kirkman’s Skybound Entertainment imprint.

Naturally, the new creative teams didn’t continue with what was done at IDW. Instead, a new comic book universe was launched: The Energon Universe. It uses creative elements from Transformers and G.I. Joe, such as familiar concepts and characters, but also introduces original materials, notably with the all-new Void Rivals.

“I’ve loved these characters for most of my life and to have the opportunity to add to the already rich tapestry Hasbro has built with the all-new Void Rivals is an unbelievable opportunity. If you look at everything done with Transformers and G.I. Joe, you can see the inkling of a vast universe with tremendous potential for crossovers and interaction that will enhance the fan experience while staying true to the individual identities of both concepts. I look forward to exploring that potential for years to come.” – Robert Kirkman.

Juggling between ongoing and limited series, with some one-shots added to the mix, the Energon Universe was officially launched in June 2023. The creative teams are made of top talents with writers like Robert Kirkman, Daniel Warren Johnson, Joshua Williamson, Kelly Thompson, and Dan Watters (and more to come), and artists like DW Johnson, Lorenzo De Felici, Jorge Corona, Tom Reilly, Andrea Milana, Marco Ferrari, and more.

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Doomsday Reading Order

Like Cyborg Superman, the supervillain Doomsday made his debut during the “Death of Superman” story arc. If everyone knows his name, it’s because he is the character who killed Superman! That’s certainly one way to make an impression.

Created by Dan Jurgens, the first appearance of Doomsday is a cameo in Superman: The Man of Steel #17, before making his full appearance in the following issue, Superman: The Man of Steel #18 (December 1992). As Jurgens wrote on his website, “When we first started talking about Doomsday, he didn’t even have a name. We talked about him in terms of “living rage” or “force of nature”. ”

There is no better way to define Doomsday, an unstoppable force of destruction engineered long ago by Kryptonian scientists to be the ultimate weapon. Devoid of emotion and shaped by an unforgiving environment, Doomsday was forged through a brutal cycle of deaths and forced evolution. In the end, he became an unkillable machine filled with primal rage.

After escaping Krypton and embarking on a killing spree across many planets, Doomsday was finally defeated and buried on the primitive planet Earth. But Doomsday always comes back to life, and he returned, once again evolved, more unstoppable than ever, becoming one of Superman’s most iconic foes.

Since his creation, Doomsday has made several appearances on live-action television and in animated series, though his most mainstream incarnation is in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Discover the ultimate Doomsday reading order, guiding you through the essential comics and many epic battles involving The Destroyer!

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The Walking Dead Comics Reading Order/Timeline, a Zombie post-apocalypse universe by Robert Kirkman

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The Walking Dead Comic Book Reading Order

There is no doubt that The Walking Dead is one of the most popular comic book series, gaining widespread recognition at the start of the 2010s with the television adaptation by AMC. Now a media franchise, it includes seven live-action television series, eight web series, several video games, novels, a role-playing game, and even an indoor roller coaster haunted attraction at Thorpe Park in England. The zombie apocalypse that captured the world’s attention began in 2003 with the original comic series.

Created by Robert Kirkman (Invincibles) and Tony Moore, The Walking Dead almost didn’t see the light of day as the two men struggled to sell their pitch. Their initial proposal, titled Dead Planet, was set in the 27th century, where a mysterious mineral on a newly discovered planet turned people into zombies, intended as a weapon. After Image Comics rejected the idea, Kirkman returned with a reworked concept, this time set on Earth and centered around the Grimes family during a zombie apocalypse in the 1960s. The comic series was initially called Night of the Living Dead, after the 1968 George Romero classic film. However, Image Comics co-founder Jim Valentino pushed for a more original concept, one with no ties to another classic zombie story.

Kirkman then proposed The Walking Dead with a more traditional approach, but the pitch was again rejected for being “too normal.” To secure the green light from Image Comics, Kirkman added a twist: the zombie plague was caused by aliens, turning the story into an alien invasion tale. Although this secured approval, Kirkman never actually intended to include aliens in the comic book.

Drawing inspiration from 28 Days Later (itself a nod to The Day of the Triffids), The Walking Dead begins with Rick Grimes, a Kentucky deputy who is shot in the line of duty and awakens from a coma to find that the world as he knew it is gone. In just a few months, society has crumbled: no government, no grocery stores, no mail delivery, and no cable TV. An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe, causing the dead to rise and feed on the living. With his family missing, Rick travels to a military evacuation zone in Atlanta to find them and joins a small group of survivors along the way, all while trying to adapt to life in this terrifying new world…

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Grendel Reading Order, Matt Wagner’s Epic Comic Book Series

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First published in 1982 by Comico, in Comico Primer #2, Grendel is a creation of Matt Wagner that started as something highly usual at the time. Inspired by Diabolik, Kriminal, Elric, the Beowulf myth, and more, this was the story of an anti-hero, Hunter Rose, an assassin turned mob boss whose Nemesis was Argent the wolf–a powerful and terrifying man-wolf.

The story of this master criminal would soon be retold in Devil by the Deed as a backup story in Wagner’s other series, Mage.

Grendel would eventually become an ongoing series at Comico, from 1986 to 1990. Instead of bringing back Hunter Rose, inspired by the generational aspects of The Phantom, Wagner decided to create a collection of stories exploring the influence of the Grendel identity. The first was Christine Spar, the daughter of Stacy Palumbo who played an integral part in Hunter Rose’s life, then Brian Li Sung who was for a time involved with Christine. After that, Wagner started to adopt a different angle, revisiting Hunter Rose’s career before going progressively into the future.

Continuously evolving, Grendel became a sci-fi story about a dystopic future where a corrupt religious society is disrupted by a powerful Vigilante dressed as Grendel. This led to a revolution and a new status quo as the power shifted and the spirit of Grendel pushed the whole imagery of the Grendel to evolve again. Then emerged the powerful and mysterious Grendel Prime.

As Comico went into bankruptcy in 1990, Grendel’s story was interrupted, but Matt Wagner moved it creation to Dark Horse Comics. Since then, he published new series and revisited old ones, coming back to it multiple times through the years.

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

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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 and is now adapted for television on Prime Video.

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

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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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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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