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Looking to get into DC Comics. Suggestions?
Riale
I'm a little slowRegistered User regular
I'm a little slowRegistered User regular
(Boring Background Stuff Below)
So, long story short, I want to read more DC Comics series that are good. At the recommendation of a friend, I picked up trades of the newest Power Girl series and I thoroughly enjoyed them. I've also got the first few Sandman trades on order, which I'm really looking forward to. However, I'm sure there's a lot of other good stuff out there. Here's a basic rundown of what I'm looking for:
I prefer series with a sarcastic or humorous edge (ala Powergirl), or that have some decent philosophical pondering element to them (Watchmen, Sandman, etc).
Preferably no team series unless they're really exceptional. From my experience reading marvel comics, these often end up all about the fights with fewer of the 'slices of life' scenes I really enjoy.
Has to be available in TPB. I'm a cheap college student and I can't really afford to buy individual issues, nor do I have the ability to store them in good condition.
With all that in mind, what else is there from DC that I absolutely have to check out? I'm open to other suggestions as well, but I primarily want series that will help me know the DC Universe better.
So I was raised in a household of comic books, but it was largely a Marvel household as my dad's profession for quite some time was comic book/collectible dealing, and he had his favorites. Because of this, my knowledge has largely been of Marvel series and characters, and I simply never checked out DC (although I did use to read a few dark horse series). Just recently I became enamored with DC Universe online while looking for a superhero fix, and I realized I've been missing out on a rich universe with a lot of history and style. I really want to learn more about it.
So, long story short, I want to read more DC Comics series that are good. At the recommendation of a friend, I picked up trades of the newest Power Girl series and I thoroughly enjoyed them. I've also got the first few Sandman trades on order, which I'm really looking forward to. However, I'm sure there's a lot of other good stuff out there. Here's a basic rundown of what I'm looking for:
I prefer series with a sarcastic or humorous edge (ala Powergirl), or that have some decent philosophical pondering element to them (Watchmen, Sandman, etc).
Preferably no team series unless they're really exceptional. From my experience reading marvel comics, these often end up all about the fights with fewer of the 'slices of life' scenes I really enjoy.
Has to be available in TPB. I'm a cheap college student and I can't really afford to buy individual issues, nor do I have the ability to store them in good condition.
With all that in mind, what else is there from DC that I absolutely have to check out? I'm open to other suggestions as well, but I primarily want series that will help me know the DC Universe better.
Riale on
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Batman:
The Long Halloween
Year One
The Dark Knight Returns
Superman:
Birthright
Superman for all Seasons
Lex Luthor: Man of Steel
Alan Moore's run of Swamp Thing is also fantastic.
I know you said "no teams", but JLI had more of a focus on personal interactions than "let's PUNCH things because we are heroes and like PUNCHING things."
Also, Vertigo has a ton of winners including Fables, Y: The Last Man, and Demo.
Anyways, if you didn't really care for Marvel, DC isn't that much differently honestly. Just some good overall comics you might like;
Fables-Like someone said already.
Preacher- It's full of gore, cursing, and sex, but it tells a really interesting story about that mixes western, humour, and religion.
Y the last Man- One of my favorite series. Simple premise of "what if all the men except one died off."
Deus Ex Machina- By the same writer as Y. This time the premise is "What if the mayor of new york was a former superhero?"
We3- If you don't tear up by the end of this series, you have no soul.
All Star Superman-Hell, pretty much anything by Grant Morrison is a trip.
I'm sure people are going to recommend others.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
I've already read a lot of comics under Vertigo, like Transmetropolitan and V for Vendetta (Didn't realize that Vertigo was a part of DC until I read about Sandman) so I'm mainly looking for series that flesh out the standard DC heroes. Superman & Co., Batman & Co., Justice League, Green Lantern, etc. Classic DC characters, if you will.
There are some great suggestions in here so far. Keep em coming!
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Also, I really enjoyed the Batgirl: Year One series from awhile ago.
Electronic composer for hire.
Her orignal run is collected over several trades, the first two are "Of Like Minds" and "Sensei and Student" and that would be a good place to start. Gail just recently returned to the title but I would really recommend starting with her first run.
If you're interested in Green Lantern, then GL: Rebirth is a pretty good place to start.
Yeah, part of the reason I specified DC is cause I've read a lot of other series, Hellboy and BPRD included (although I've started to lose track of Hellboy...) However, for anyone else reading this thread, Hellboy is absolutey amazing.
Thanks to recommendations here and from friends I ordered This, this, this and this (Personal guilty pleasure, I adore amanda connor's art.)
I also grabbed a copy of Batman: Year One locally and I'm currently digging through it. It is absolutely fantastic. I am also dying to get Gotham By Gaslight. I never realized Mike Mignola did the artwork for it, though I've heard people talk about it to me before.
Birds of Prey and Batgirl: Year One also pique my interest. I'll have to add them to my wishlist. Animal Man is also interesting.
Are either of the two recent Crisis (final/infinite) worth picking up? I know a lot of it is bits of obscure DC characters I probably wouldn't know, but I've always been a bit of a sucker for the big storylines, even if they are super cheesy (I admittedly dug Civil War).
Steam | XBL: Elazual | Last.fm
Sadly, there are only a handful of Batgirl trades, most of the run is only available in singles.
Anyway, I highly recommend Grant Morrison's Batman run (and Final Crisis), it's pretty awesome. Specifically, read them in this order:
Batman and Son
The Black Glove
Batman RIP
Final Crisis
Batman and Robin: Batman Reborn
Batman and Robin: Batman vs Robin
Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne
Batman and Robin: Batman Must Die
It then continues into Batman Incorporated.
And the others I'd highly recommend:
All Star Superman
Superman: Red Son
Batman: No Mans Land (Volumes 1-5, introduced Cass Cain as Batgirl)
Batgirl Vol. 1 (really fun series, it established Cass Cain as one of my favourite characters)
Nightwing (specifically Freefall and The Great Leap)
Blue Beetle (really fun series, very Spider-Man-ey)
52
JLA
Secret Six (Villains United, the Secret Six mini and current series)
Green Lantern/Green Lantern Corps (From Rebirth/Recharge up until the Sinestro Corps War, after that proceed with caution, it gets pretty stupid)
And Vertigo:
We3
Sandman
Madame Xanadu
Fables
Seaman
The Invisibles
The Filth
Transmetropolitan
Planetary (not Vertigo but Wildstorm's dead so yeah)
this guy, he knows his stuff. bonus for all of these in that you don't need to be heavily invested in comics to appreciate them. i will throw on this list, and keep in mind superman is my favorite so it's gonna be a bit biased:
All-Star Superman. literally one of the best Superman stories i've ever read, second only to Birthright. the one caveat is if you don't like Grant Morrison you probably won't like this.
John Byrne's Man of Steel. it's the post-crisis origin story of Superman pre-Birthright and pre-Earth One (which is poo). just a classic.
Superman: Maelstrom. it's a miniseries featuring Superman and Supergirl doing a little bit of bonding on a planet where they lack powers.
All-New Atom. very trippy, idea seeds by Grant Morrison and executed by Gail Simone. Gives you a great appreciation for a relatively obscure hero.
if you want recommendations on character books, i think the various main Superman / Batman books are pretty good right now. i'm also a huge Supergirl fan, so if you like her as a character you might like where they're taking her character (though you might want to start around #34 as the quality up til then was... dubious).
there are plenty of others but i don't want to bombard you.
However I am definitely interested in getting to know Superman better, as he's one of the comic book characters I have read the least of (shocking, I know). All of those suggestions look fantastic. I'll definitely look into them. You guys have all been a big help.
Steam | XBL: Elazual | Last.fm
They're not really comics, but it would be a mistake to pass over Batman the Animated series and Justice League (including JL unlimited). Personally I've found that getting into the characters through the show has made me way more interested in reading their respective comics!
For example I used to hate superman. He was just dumb and boring, there was no point in even looking at a superman comic. Now I freak out whenever I think he's in trouble
give #34 a try. sterling gates took over (he campaigned for the job in fact) the book with artist Jamal Igle then and transformed the character from a confused narrative mess into a very strong character very much set apart from Superman.
Funny you should mention that, because I just bought the first volume of Batman:TAS. After I finish that I plan to start on JL & JLU. I've always been a sucker for superhero cartoons. I used to watch a bit of Batman: TAS as a child, which was my only real exposure to DC, and a lot of the 90s X-Men and Spider-Man cartoons.
Steam | XBL: Elazual | Last.fm
I wish they were on netflix instant play =(
Why oh why would you skip over Superman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond? Whatswrongwithyou?!
Oh and because I didn't emphasis it enough before, I'd highly recommend you check out Madame Xanadu after Sandman (and the couple of Death minis of course). While she obviously isn't in the same league as any of the Endless in terms of power, I still felt like they were thematically similar. Maybe I'm a bit off there, I didn't exactly read them one after the other but I can comfortably say that if DC hadn't cancelled the book so early, I think it would've been up there as one of my favourites alongside Sandman.
Watch all of the shows in this universe. After Batman watch Superman TAS, then Batman Beyond, then Justice League, then JLU. They're all great shows, they all share the same continuity, and watching them all, in the order they came out, will be really rewarding.
Basically, watch the first 3 BTAS sets, with the Mask of the Phantasm movies somewhere during this and the Sub Zero movie after all 3, then the first couple Superman ones, then watch the last sets of both in whatever order you want. Then Batman Beyond fully, followed by it's movie, Retrn of the Joker(uncut version). JL and JLU straight through from there.
I recently did this and it was just an awesome way to experience it all.
There's also Static Shock and The Zeta Project, the former is a show that crosses over with the others here and there, while the latter is a spinoff of Batman Beyond. They're not really as important or as good as the others, and aren't on DVD, so I'd just skip them for now. Hopefully Static will see a DVD release someday.
After that, I got
Infinite Crisis (big company event) and its lead-ins Omac Project and Villains United
52 (maxi-series follow up to IC that follows a bunch of secondary characters and was written by DC's best writers)
The current Green Lantern run (Rebirth onwards) and Green Lantern Corps run (Recharge onwards)
Batman: Hush (good place to start for the Batman status quo if you haven't read a lot of him)
Batman: The Red Hood (written by Power Girl's Winick and has a lot of the snark you're looking for)
Any of Paul Dini's Batman trades (basically like the animated series)
Grant Morrisson's current Batman run (see above poster for read order)
Manhunter
Blue Beetle