DC Comics Archives - Comic Book Herald: Recent Episodes
DC Comics Archives - Comic Book Herald
Brainiac is unquestionably one of Superman’s all-time greatest foes (we’re not going to sit here and rank them, but he’s only demonstrably behind Lex Luthor in my power rankings!), although the versions of the character through eight decades of comic book continuity can initially seem intimidating and dumbfounding. Don’t panic! This Comic Book Herald guide will walk you through the character’s history and all the Brainiac comics you should read to best enjoy and understand the classic DC villain.
Related Reading Orders:Superman
Lex Luthor
Supergirl
If you want to read comics with Brainiac 5, the 30th century descendant of the original Brainiac trying to do right, check out Comic Book Herald’s Legion of Super-Heroes reading order!
For most readers in the 2000’s, you’ll probably want to jump straight to Superman: Brainiac by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank. This is a prevailing modern take on the character, that more closely aligns Brainiac with versions seen in Superman: The Animated Series or Justice League Unlimited. Other good Brainiacs starting places include comics appearances in “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow” by Alan Moore and Curt Swan, or even the dark reimagining in Absolute Superman.
Otherwise, below you’ll find a complete Brainiac comics reading order. Enjoy the comics!
Brainiac Begins!Superman: The Silver Age Omnibus Vol. 1
Collects: Action Comics #241-265 and Superman #122-137
Contained within the Silver Age Omnibus Vol. 1 above, Action Comics #242 marks the debut of Brainiac and the bottled city of Kandor.
Superman vs. Brainiac
Collects: Action Comics #242, #489-491, #544, #649, and #763, Superman #167, Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #17, Adventures of Superman #438, and Superman: Metropolis Secret Files #1
Note that Action Comics #242, 544, 649 are also included elsewhere in this guide.
Superman: The Silver Age Omnibus Vol. 2
Collects: Action Comics #266-288 and Superman #138-153
Batman & Superman in World’s Finest: The Silver Age Omnibus Vol. 2
Collects: World’s Finest Comics #117-158
Currently the only way to collect World’s Finest #144 “The 1,000 Tricks of Clayface and Brainiac!” Not in DC Universe Infinite as I write this in 2026!
Supergirl: The Silver Age Omnibus Vol. 2
Collects: Action Comics #308-333, #335-340, #342, #344-346, #348-350, #353-354, #356-359, #361-372, and #374-376
Includes Action Comics #339, where Brainiac captures Supergirl. This comic actually is in DC Universe Infinite as of 2026.
Bronze Age BrainiacSuperman: The Adventures of Nightwing and Flamebird
Collects: Superman Family #173 and #183-194
Includes Superman Family #183 where Brainiac tries to destroy Kandor.
Superman: The Bottle City of Kandor
Collects: Action Comics #242 and #245, Superman #158 and #338, Superman Family #194, Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #21, #76, and #78, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #53 and #69, and World’s Finest Comics #143
In particular, includes Superman #338 with Kandor restored!
Adventures of Superman: Gil Kane
Collects: Superman #367, #372, and #375, Action Comics #539-541, #544-546, and #551-554, Superman Special #1-2, and DC Comics Presents Annual #3
Crisis on Infinite Earths: 35th Anniversary Deluxe Edition
Collects: Crisis on Infinite Earths #1-12 and History of the DC Universe #1-2
Superman: Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?
Collects: Superman #423, Action Comics #583, Superman Annual #11, and DC Comics Presents #85
Post-Crisis: Brainiac’s Mid-Life Crisis aka ‘Now That’s One Fiiiiine Milton’Superman: The Man of Steel Vol. 3
Collects: Superman #12-15, Adventures of Superman #436-438, Action Comics #594-597, Superman: The Earth Stealers #1, Action Comics Annual #1, Superman Annual #1, Adventures of Superman Annual #1, and Booster Gold #23
Includes John Byrne’s post-Crisis reimagining of Brainiac in Adventures of Superman #438.
Superman: The Man of Steel Vol. 4
Collects: Doom Patrol #10, Superman #16-22, Adventures of Superman #439-444, Action Comics #598-600, and Superman Annual #2
Again, this will continue the Brainiac as Milton Fine build in the pages of Adventures of Superman prior to the “Exile” era.
LEGION (1989-1994)
75 issue series from the amazing Keith Giffen, Alan Grant and Barry Kitson. Starring a post-Crisis Vril Dox, ancestor of the Legion of Super-Heroes’ Brainiac 5. This series is on DC Universe Infinite, which is going to be the most affordable way to read all the comics.
Superman: Exile and Other Stories Omnibus
Collects: Adventures of Superman #445-459, Superman #23-27, Action Comics #643-646, and Action Comics Annual #2
Superman: Brainiac Reborn Omnibus
Collects: Superman #38-48, Adventures of Superman #461-471, Action Comics #647-658, Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography #1, L.E.G.I.O.N. Annual #1, Superman Special #1, Adventures of Superman Annual #2, Superman: “Under a Yellow Sun” A Novel by Clark Kent #1, and Superman: Eradication! The Origin of the Eradicator #1
Triangle Era Superman vs. BrainiacSuperman: Panic in the Sky
Collects: Action Comics #674-675, Superman: The Man of Steel #9-10, Adventures of Superman #488-489, and Superman #65-66
Justice
Collects: Original graphic novel by Alex Ross and Jim Krueger
Superman: The Doomsday Wars
Collects: Doomsday Wars #1 to #3
Superman: Dead Again
One of – if not the – most notable miss of essential Brainiac comics in DC’s current collections. These would likely be a part of the ongoing Superman Triangle Era Omnibus editions, perhaps in time for later 2027.
Reading Order:
- Superman: The Man of Steel #38
- Superman #94
- Adventures of Superman #517
- Action Comics #704
- Superman: The Man of Steel #39
- Superman #95
- Adventures of Superman #518
- Action Comics #705
- Superman: The Man of Steel #40
- Superman #96
- Adventures of Superman #519
Superman: City of Tomorrow Compendium
Collects: Superman #151-159, Adventures of Superman #573-581, Action Comics #760-768, Superman: The Man of Steel #95-103, and Superman Y2K #1
If you want to go completely all in on this era of Superman and Brainiac’s schemes in the Our Worlds at War event, there’s a larger (more expensive) Omnibus with these same issues: Superman: Our Worlds at War Omnibus Vol. 1 — Prelude to War!
Superman: Our Worlds at War Omnibus Vol. 2 — All-Out War!
Collects: Wonder Woman #172-173, Superman #64, Superman #172-175, Adventures of Superman #594-596, Action Comics #781-783, Superman: The Man of Steel #116-118, Batman #593-594, Superboy #90-91, Impulse #77-78, Supergirl #60-61, Young Justice #35-37, Harley Quinn: Our Worlds at War #1, Wonder Woman: Our Worlds at War #1, World’s Finest Comics: Our Worlds at War #1, Flash: Our Worlds at War #1, JLA: Our Worlds at War #1, JSA: Our Worlds at War #1, Nightwing: Our Worlds at War #1, and Superman/Batman #68-71
New Brainiac / New KryptonSuperman/Batman Vol. 3
Collects: Superman/Batman #27 to #36
Issues #34 to #36 include some Brainiac comics action!
Superman: Red Son
Collects: Superman: Red Son #1-3
Superman: Brainiac
Collects: Action Comics (1938) #866-870, and Superman: New Krypton Special #1
This is the go-to starting place for most modern readers, in my opinion, some of the best DC work by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank.
Superman: New Krypton Saga Omnibus Vol. 1
Collects: Action Comics #866–879, Supergirl #35–43 and Annual #1, Superman #681–690 and Annual #14, Superman: New Krypton Special #1, Superman: World of New Krypton #1–5, World of New Krypton Special #1, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen Special #1, Adventure Comics Special Featuring the Guardian #1, Manhunter #1 and #6, and The Flash #12
If you want to read all the fallout of Johns and Frank’s “Brainiac” storyline, it’s right here in the New Krypton Saga.
New 52 Brainiac ComicsSuperman by Grant Morrison Omnibus
Collects: Action Comics (2011) #0-18 and Action Comics Annual #1
Grant Morrison gets to reimagine Brainiac for DC’s New 52!
Superman (2011-2016) #23.2: Featuring Brainiac
Collects: Superman #23.2
Superman: Doomed
Collects: Superman: Doomed #1-2, Action Comics #30-35, Action Comics Annual #3, Superman #30-31, Superman/Wonder Woman #7-12, Superman/Wonder Woman Annual #1, Supergirl #34-35, and Batman/Superman #11
Superman/Wonder Woman #7
Superman #30
Superman: Doomed #1
Action Comics #31
Superman/Wonder Woman #8
Batman/Superman #11
Superman #31
Action Comics #32
Superman/Wonder Woman #9
Action Comics #33
Superman/Wonder Woman #10
Superman/Wonder Woman Annual #1
Action Comics Annual #3
Action Comics #34
Superman/Wonder Woman #11
Supergirl #34
Superman: Doomed #2
Action Comics #35
Superman/Wonder Woman #12
Supergirl #35
The New 52: Futures End Vol. 1
The New 52: Futures End Vol. 2
The New 52: Futures End Vol. 3
Convergence
Collects: Convergence #0 to #8
Listen, I do not enjoy Convergence. BUT, it would be malpractice not to include the ride from Future’s End to Convergence in a Brainiac reading order. Mileage may vary!
Brainiac Comics of the Present DayHal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps Vol. 2: Bottled Light
Collects: Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps #8 to #13
Justice League: No Justice
Collects: Justice League No Justice #1 to #4
Superman and the Authority
Collects: Superman and the Authority (2021) #1-4
Superman ’78
Collects: Superman ’78 #1 to #6
Out of continuity alternate take based on the universe of the first Superman movie!
Superman 2023 Annual #1
The first annual in the Joshua Williamson written era of Superman sets the stage for a Brainiac crossover. It’s not strictly essential just for Brainiac, but the build to “House of Brainiac” will go down smoother if you also read Williamson’s first two volumes on the title:
Superman Vol. 1: Supercorp
Superman Vol. 2: The Chained
Collects: Superman #1-12
Superman: House of Brainiac
Collects: Action Comics #1064-1066, Superman #13-15, and Superman: House of Brainiac Special #1
Action Comics #1064
Superman #13
Superman: House of Brainiac Special #1
Action Comics #1065
Superman #14
Action Comics #1066
Superman #15
Absolute Power
Collects: Absolute Power: Ground Zero #1 and Absolute Power #1-4
Absolute Superman Vol. 2: Son of the Demon
Collects: Absolute Superman #7-14
Note that DC’s Absolute Universe is separate from the mainline continuity we’ve been reading so far. You can enjoy the full universe via Comic Book Herald’s Absolute Comics reading order.
The post Brainiac Reading Order appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
As we all predicted, the third feature-length movie in the James Gunn led reboot of the DC Universe, following Superman and Supergirl, will of course be… uh… Clayface! And I’m excited about it! (If you’re reading this from the future and I should not have been excited about it, please reply in the comments marked as “from the future”!)
Like a few of Gotham’s most wanted – Mister Freeze and Harley Quinn chief among them – Clayface’s most memorable story may well come from Batman the Animated series in season one’s Feat of Clay. Personally, I’m partial to Alan Tudyk’s hammy portrayal in the Harley Quinn animated series. Appropriately, both renditions have shown how malleable the villain can be.
Fitting for a character who can change their shape and take on the appearance of another, there have been a surprising amount of different individuals to occupy the role of Clayface since the character’s introduction in the pages of Detective Comics in 1940. Below you’ll find a guide through all these variations, with a focus on key essential Clayface comics over the past 85 years!
Batman Arkham: Clayface
Collects: Detective Comics #40, #298, #478-479, Outsiders #21, Secret Origins #44, Batman #550, Catwoman #4, Batman Gotham Knights #69, 70, 71, And Batman Secret Files And Origins Villain #1
The Arkham villains collection is the most sizable Clayface “greatest hits” to date, so I’ll break out the issues below. Again, because of the malleability of the villain, these issues cover different identities and eras of the character. I’ll italicize the issues included in this collection below. If an issue is written out bolded and linked, that means it’s separate from the “Arkham” collection, but fits chronologically in that position.
Detective Comics #40 (1940)
Introduction of the original Clayface, Basil Karlo, by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and Jerry Robinson.
Detective comics #49 (1941)
Detective Comics #298 (1961)
The second Clayface, Matt Hagen, by Bill Finger, Sheldon Moldoff and Charles Paris.
Detective Comics #304 (1962)
Detective Comics #312 (1963)
Batman #159 (1963)
Detective Comics #478-479 (1978)
As you guessed, the intro of the third Clayface, Preston Payne by Len Wein, Marshall Rogers and Dick Giordano.
Outsiders #21 (1987)
Mike W. Barr and Jim Aparo’s Outsiders introduces Sondra Fuller as a new Clayface, although she also tries to make the name “Looker” happen, which reminds me of the time in college I introduced myself as Studmuffin for a semester.
Batman Annual #11 (1987)
Strangely, the Alan Moore written story about the third Clayface falling in love with a mannequin (you read that right) is not included in the “Arkham” greatest hits. Extremely funny to me that this Moore addition to the DCU was published the same year Watchmen ended.
Secret Origins #44 (1989)
Mike W. Barr and Keith Giffen reframe the story of Basil Karlo in Detective Comics #40, before the rest of the issue gives a glimpse into the lives of each of the Clayfaces’s in Batman’s past. It’s not collected in the same “Arkham” volume, but this sets the stage for the Clays to come together as the Mudpack in the listing below.
Batman: The Dark Knight Detective Vol. 2
Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle bring the Clays together as the Mudpack in Detective Comics #604 to #607.
Batman Legends of the Dark Knight #89-90
“Clay” by Alan Grant and Quique Alcatena.
Batman Shadow of the Bat #26-27, #75, #88 (1994, 1998)
In the first story arc, “Child’s Clay” (comics!), we meet the Clayface baby (what a sentence to be able to write). Then, a couple minor Clayface roles set during Cataclysm and No Man’s Land. Notable for Mark Buckingham and Dan Jurgens drawing each issue respectively, and for an all-time bad Mister Freeze pun in the former.
Shadow of the Bat #88 kicks off the “Fruit of the Earth” crossover written by Greg Rucka. The story continues in Batman #568 and then Detective Comics #735.
Batman #550 (1998)
Another Clayface?! With a pun so bad I lost a year of my life, Doug Moench and J.H. Williams introduce Cassius “Clay” Payne, the son of two former Clayfaces (Clayfasci?). Perhaps most notable for the introduction of Chase, a character J.H. Williams would do some excellent work on!
Catwoman #4 (2002)
The backhalf of the “Arkham” collection finally taps into non-intro stories, here with some Clayface action from the excellent Catwoman run by Ed Brubaker, Darwyn Cooke and Mike Allred.
Batman: Gotham Knights #68-71 (2006)
The four-part Clayface in the Gotham underworld story by AJ Lieberman and Al Barrionuevo.
Batman: Joker’s Asylum (2010)
Joker takes on the role of Cryptkeeper weaving tales about Batman’s rogue’s gallery. Part two features a Clayface special by Kevin Shinick and Kelley Jones. Definitely not Jones’s best Batman work, but there’s at least one shot of the Caped Crusader’s, well, cape worth the read.
Batgirl #13 (2010)
Batman by Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo Omnibus Vol. 1
Snyder and Capullo’s legendary New 52 Batman run took a two issue detour between mega Joker and Zero Year stories for a lil’ Clayface quickie (issues #19 and #20 of their Batman run).
Batman: The Dark Knight #23.3 (2013)
DC’s New 52 had a “Villains Month” special, and Clayface gets the focus here from John Layman and Cliff Richards.
Batman: The Dark Knight (2011-2014) Vol. 4: Clay
Collects: Batman: The Dark Knight #22 to #29
New 52 focus on Clayface’s origins.
Arkham Manor
In probably the least essential/goofiest inclusion on the list, a stray piece of Clayface’s body gains sentience and is imprisoned in Arkham Manor, the prison inside Batman’s house. Can you even call yourself a Clayhead if you don’t know about Clownface?
Batwoman Vol. 6: The Unknowns (2015)
Collects: Batwoman #35 to #40, Batwoman Annual #2
Batman: The Rise and Fall of the Batmen (2016-2020)
Clayface is a regular during the James Tynion IV written Detective Comics, in probably the defining modern take on the character.
Batman One Bad Day: Clayface (2023)
By Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly and Xermanico.
Batman: Brave and the Bold #10 (2024)
As recommended in these very comments, Dan Watters and Ricardo López Ortiz deliver a Clay-classic with “Cheeseburger,” a short black-and-white anthology story.
Batman and Robin Year One (2025)
He’s not even the leading face-based villain, but Clayface plays a significant role in the quite good Year One series by Mark Waid and Chris Samnee. It’s a menacing near Gotham takeover for Matt Hagen, and Samnee gives us some of the best monstrous Clayface in years.
Harley Quinn #47 (2025)
The Clayface reunion party.
The post Clayface Reading Order appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
I resisted making a Peacemaker reading order for the entire first season of James Gunn and John Cena’s HBO Peacemaker, even though I committed to learning the full choreography of Wig Wam’s “Do You Wanna Taste It”. It just seemed like there wasn’t enough meat on the bone for Peacemaker’s actual comic book history to justify a full guide.
Well, turns out a role as one of the most celebrated and shockingly critical players in the new DC film universe leads to more printed comic books for our boy Peace. So sure, it doesn’t have the history and depth of the Superman reading order, but let’s give Peace a chance!
Below you’ll find a complete guide for Peacemaker comics, from his 60s origins with Charlton Comics to his 80s reinvention with DC after DC purchased the rights to the Charlton characters in 1983.
DC Finest: Peacemaker – Kill for Peace
Collects: The Fightin’ 5 #40-41, Peacemaker Vol. 1 #1 to #5 (1967), Peacemaker #1-4 (1987), and his cameos from the pages of Checkmate #16-26, #28, and #32-33, Suicide Squad #27-30, Vigilante #36-38 and #41-43, Showcase ’93 #6-#11, and Eclipso #11-13
The newer DC Finest selection covers off on pretty much the complete collected Charlton Comics origins and 80s DC revival for Peacemaker.
Note that the Suicide Squad and Checkmate issues initially crossover as part of “The Janus Directive.” They can be read as follows:
Suicide Squad #27
Checkmate #16
Suicide Squad #28
Checkmate #17
Suicide Squad #29
Checkmate #18
Suicide Squad #30
And from there you can proceed to Checkmate #19 through issue #33.
Watchmen
For decades, Peacemaker was most notable as the Charlton Comics character who served as the basis for Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and John Higgin’s Comedian. Honestly the most remarkable feat James Gunn has achieved with the DC Universe is breaking Peacemaker free from that shadow.
For obvious reasons, you should read Watchmen. But as part of the Peacemaker journey, this is more what-if comic book history.
Peacemaker (1987)
Collects: Peacemaker #1 to #4 (1987)
The post-Watchmen, “Uh, we better keep this Peacemaker IP out of Moore and Gibbon’s hands before they make him unusable for our plans for a 2020s character revival!”
Blue Beetle (2006 to 2009)
The Keith Giffen and John Rogers run that introduced Jaime Reyes brings the Charlton bros together, with a nearly unrecognizable Peacemaker playing a sort of mentor to Jaime.
Multiversity – Pax Americana
Morrison and Quitely’s final word on Watchmen, complete with the Charlton Comics inspirations for their better known Watchmen-verse versions.
For more on what’s happening here, check out our excellent Who Watched the Watchmen essay from Ritesh!
Modern John Cena Peacemaker Comics (2020s)Suicide Squad Vol. 1: Give Peace a Chance
Collects: Future State: Suicide Squad #1-2 and Suicide Squad #1-6
Suicide Squad Vol. 2: Ambushed!
Collects: Suicide Squad #7-12 and Suicide Squad 2021 Annual
War for Earth-3
Collects: The Flash #780; Suicide Squad #13; Teen Titans Academy#13; and War for Earth-3 #1-2
War for Earth-3 reading checklist:
War for Earth-3 #1
Suicide Squad #13
The Flash #780
Teen Titans Academy #13
War for Earth-3 #2
Suicide Squad #14
Peacemaker: Disturbing the Peace
Collects: Peacemaker: Disturbing the Peace #1 (2022)
Garth Ennis jumps in for an over-sized one-shot between Gunn’s Suicide Squad and Peacemaker series. As a result, Ennis is taking Peacemaker entirely serious, more in line with the type of work he’s done on Frank Castle in Punisher.
Suicide Squad: Blaze
Hellblazer team extraordinaire Si Spurrier and Aaron Campbell team-up for a Peacemaker era Suicide Squad tale for DC’s Black Label. Apart from Pax Americana, the best-looking comics Peacemaker has ever been a part of!
Peacemaker Tries Hard!
Collects: Peacemaker Tries Hard! #1-6
This is the read for HBO series fans, as Kyle Starks and Steve Pugh match the comic mania of John Cena’s yoked lunatic.
Unstoppable Doom Patrol
Collects: Unstoppable Doom Patrol #1 to #7
Peacemaker leads Task Force X on the hunt for the metahumans in and around Doom Patrol!
Green Arrow Vol. 1: Reunion
Collects: Green Arrow (2023) #1 to #6
Peacemaker (and the new Peacewrecker) cameo in the rebooted Dawn of DC Green Arrow. Eventually, Peacemaker also makes his way to the 2024 Absolute Power event through the pages of Green Arrow.
Peacemaker Presents: Vigilante: Double Feature
Collects: Peacemaker Presents: The Vigilante/Eagly Double Feature! #1-5
No finer proof that Peacemaker is a hit than Vigilante and Eagly sharing a miniseries.
Absolute Superman
Jason Aaron has a riff on Peacemaker in his Absolute Superman reimagining. You can see more in the full DC Absolute Universe reading order.
The post Peacemaker Reading Order appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
Does the world need a DC Compact Classics reading order? Some would say no. Many would say absolutely not. And yet… here I am! Welcome to the world’s only guide to read all the DC Compact Comics editions chronologically!
What are Compact Classics? These savvy collected editions, measuring a convenient 5.5″ x 8.5″, pack major storylines into a more manageable, reader-friendly format, making them a uniquely popular draw for new fans looking for clear entry points or seasoned veterans wanting to revisit classics without breaking the bank (in America, the books go for $9.99). For years, superhero comics audiences have wondered how DC and Marvel could mirror the success of manga. Turns out affordable wee collections of famous stories was the answer!
For reasons I can’t fully explain, I pulled together a comprehensive reading order for all the DC Compact Comics, laid out chronologically so you can journey through decades of incredible storytelling. From the gritty streets of Gotham to the cosmic reaches of the DC Multiverse, this list is your streamlined guide to experiencing some of the best of DC Comics history, all presented in an order that takes you from 1986 to present day. The books certainly won’t need to be read in order to be enjoyed (for that, there’s Comic Book Herald’s full DC Comics Reading Order), but it’s kind of interesting to see the progression of the publisher and characters like Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman over the decades.
The OGs: Late 80’s Graphic Novels Defining DCV for Vendetta
Collects: V for Vendetta #1–10
Alan Moore and David Lloyd
Swamp Thing: The Anatomy Lesson
Collects: The Saga of the Swamp Thing #20–27
Alan Moore’s, John Totleben and Steven Bissette’s reinvention of Swamp Thing that essentially launched the entire Vertigo era of comics.
One of my 50 favorite comics of all time!
Crisis on Infinite Earths
Collects: Crisis on Infinite Earths #1–12
Marv Wolfman and George Pérez set the template for every DC crossover event that followed. Is it good? Who cares! Worlds will live and worlds will die!
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Collects: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1–4
This seminal work by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley reimagines Batman in a dystopian future, forcing an aging Bruce Wayne out of retirement for one last, brutal stand.
It’s one of my 10 favorite comics of all time!
Watchmen
Collects: Watchmen #1–12
If you’re looking for the groundbreaking graphic novel that changed comics forever, this Compact Classic provides the complete, impactful experience in a perfectly portable package.
It’s my favorite comic book of all time!
Batman: Arkham Asylum
Collects: Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth OGN
Batman does a dungeon crawler (just like the Video Game) but brought to life by an up-and-coming Grant Morrison and the visual mastery of Dave McKean.
Batman: Gotham by Gaslight
Collects: Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, Batman: Master of the Future
Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola (Hellboy!) transport Batman to Victorian-era Gotham, pitting the Dark Knight against the most infamous real-world serial killer in history. Collecting both the original OGN and its 1991 sequel.
90s Babies: DC Classics from the 1990sKingdom Come
Collects: Kingdom Come #1–4
Mark Waid and Alex Ross tackle the next generation of superheroes in a world where an older Clark, Bruce and Diana are beginning to feel dated.
Batman: The Long Halloween
Collects: Batman: The Long Halloween #1–13
Follow Batman during his early years as he hunts a mysterious serial killer targeting Gotham’s crime families only on holidays, masterfully crafted by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.
One of my 50 favorite comics of all time!
The Authority: Relentless
Collects: The Authority (vol. 1) #1–12, Planetary/The Authority: Ruling the World #1, “Requiem” from WildStorm: A Celebration of 25 Years
There’s really no question that The Authority belongs among DC’s Compact Comics, especially with James Gunn’s plans to integrate the franchise into his DC Movie Universe. Bryan Hitch’s famous “Wide-screen” action absolutely revolutionizes the way comic book stories are told in the new millenium. Unfortunately, though, the book is written by Warren Ellis, an incredibly famous comic book writer who was revealed to have manipulated and groomed over 60 women and non-binary individuals during his career. You can read more about that here.
DC Comics of the Early 2000sCatwoman: Trail Of The Catwoman
Collects: Catwoman: Selina’s Big Score, Catwoman (vol. 3) #1–9, “Trail of the Catwoman” from Detective Comics #759–762
Comic book legends Darwyn Cooke and Ed Brubaker team up for the quintessential modern Selina Kyle story, only rivaled this millennium by Cliff Chiang’s Catwoman Lonely City!
Batman: Hush
Collects: Batman #608–619
I’ve got my quibbles, but Hush by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee is an excellent new readers selection that will leave you craving more Batman. Come for Jim Lee’s amazing Killer Croc, stay for the mystery of the criminal mastermind pulling the strings.
Superman: Red Son
Collects: Superman: Red Son #1–3
Imagine a world where Superman’s rocket landed in the Soviet Union instead of Kansas, leading to a fascinating alternate history where the Man of Steel becomes a champion of communism, by Mark Millar and Dave Johnson.
Superman: Birthright
Collects: Superman: Birthright #1–12
A modern retelling of Superman’s origin from Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu.
Gotham Central
Collects: Gotham Central #1–10
The streets of Gotham from the perspective of the ordinary police detectives who deal with the fallout of Batman’s war on crime, from the acclaimed team of Ed Brubaker, Greg Rucka and Michael Lark. If you like what you read here, definitely track down more Gotham Central because the next story arc is an all-time Joker story titled “Soft Targets.”
One of my 50 favorite comics of all time!
Batman: Under the Red Hood
Collects: Batman #635–641, #645–650, Batman Annual #25
Batman is forced to confront DC’s most famous phone-in murder and his strict no-kill code head-on.
Superman/Batman: Book One
Collects: Superman/Batman (vol. 1) #1–6, 8-13, “When Clark Met Bruce” from Superman/Batman Secret Files & Origins 2003
The Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuinness run is most well known as the modern reintroduction of Supergirl.
DC: The New Frontier
Collects: DC: The New Frontier #1–6, Justice League: The New Frontier Special
Travel back to the 1950s in this retro-futuristic masterpiece, exploring the dawn of the Silver Age of heroes and the challenges they face in a world grappling with the Cold War and social change, from the legendary Darwyn Cooke.
Batman: Harley and Ivy
Collects: Batman: Harley and Ivy #1–3, The Batman Adventures Annual #1, The Batman Adventures Holiday Special #1, The Batman and Robin Adventures #8, The Batgirl Adventures #1, Batman: Gotham Knights #14, Batman Black and White #3
Paul Dini and Bruce Timm’s lovingly crafted collection of DC’s most chaotic duo as seen on Batman: The Animated Series.
DC From the Mid Aughts up to the New 52All-Star Superman
Collects: All-Star Superman #1–12
The first compact edition I bought… and I already own an over-sized hardcover copy of the Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely classic! Honestly, I’m looking at the beautiful Quitely art brought to life in miniature on my desk right now and… I’ll be right back… in an hour or so.
One of my 50 favorite comics of all time!
Green Arrow: Year One
Collects: Green Arrow: Year One #1-6
Andy Diggle and Jock reimagine the origins of Oliver Queen, inspiring the hit CW series, Arrow, that followed a few years later.
Joker
Collects: Joker (graphic novel)
Whatever you think about Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo’s Joker, the graphic novel’s inclusion among the Compact Classics line highlights how willingly DC will print wildly fluctuating page counts for “premium” work. Many of the compacts are in excess of 300 pages of story. In the case of The Dark Knight Returns coming in at 200 pages, I’d argue in favor of the perennial best-seller/all-timer. In the case of the Joker compact edition coming in at 136 pages for the same $9.99 price point? That’s a bad deal!
I don’t know exactly what the answer is – In theory, DC could have blended Azzarello and Bermejo’s Luthor graphic novel into this collection for a more in-line page count – but to me this is a striking rare example where the compact line misses.
Batman & Son
Collects: Batman #655–658, #663–666
Grant Morrison begins his legendary Batman run here, introducing Damian Wayne — Batman’s son with Talia al Ghul — to the DC universe for the first time.
Batwoman: Elegy
Collects: Detective Comics #854–863
The defining Batwoman run from Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams. If you want to see some of the most stylish, inventive page layouts in comics, look no farther.
The Flash: Rebirth
Collects: The Flash: Rebirth #1–6, The Flash (vol. 3) #1–7
The return of Barry Allen as the Flash. If you’ve read nothing but compact classics so far, you have no idea he ever left! Personally, I don’t think this is a good introduction to The Flash, so hopefully there’s an update coming in hot off the cosmic treadmill soon!
Harley Quinn and the Gotham City Sirens
Collects: Gotham City Sirens #1–13
Harley, Poison Ivy and Catwoman run this town! Paul Dini (of Paul Dini and Bruce Timm’s Batman The Animated Series fame) and artist Guillem March prove just how much room there is in Gotham City for comics in a delightful series focused on the trio of anti-heroes. This run plays off Dini’s work on Detective Comics, so get ready for Eddy Nigma’s time as a detective!
DC’s New 52 (2011 to 2016)Batman: The Court of Owls Saga
Collects: Batman (vol. 2) #1–11
The start of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s iconic New 52 Batman run, introducing the Court of Owls and their connection to the legacy of Gotham.
If you want to see where these comics fit in the era, check out Comic Book Herald’s New 52 reading order.
One of my 100 favorite comics of all time!
Wonder Woman: Blood And Guts
Collects: Wonder Woman (vol. 4) #1–12
New 52 Wonder Woman is somewhat controversial in how Brian Azzarello reimagines Diana and Themyscira’s origins, but what isn’t controversial is that Cliff Chiang should be drawing Greek mythology whenever he darn well pleases.
Justice League: Origin
Collects: Justice League #1–6
Geoff Johns and Jim Lee’s New 52 retelling of how the World’s Greatest Heroes came together.
Harley Quinn: Wild at Heart
Collects: Harley Quinn #0–13
Husband and wife duo Amanda Connor and Jimmy Palmiotti helped usher in the modern Harley Quinnaissance, and the Margot Robbie driven surge of popularity that’s followed. While it’s otherwise a somewhat odd pick for the first three New 52 runs to highlight, it’s Harley’s world, and we’re just living in it.
Batgirl of Burnside
Collects: Batgirl #35–52, Batgirl Annual #3, Secret Origins #10, DC Sneak Peek: Batgirl #1
Cameron Stewart, Brenden Fletcher, and Babs Tarr reinvented Barbara Gordon for a new generation.
DC’s Newest Hit Comics (2017 to Present Day)Injustice: Gods Among Us — Year One
Collects: Injustice: Gods Among Us Year One — The Complete Collection (Chapters #1–36, Annual #1)
Far better than it has any right to be for a video game tie-in! This was actually published digitally during the New 52, but it’s part of its own continuity.
Batman: White Knight
Collects: Batman: White Knight #1–8
Sean Gordon Murphy and Matt Hollingsworth’s take on an out-of-continuity Batman alternate universe where a “redeemed” Joker is the one hunting the Batman.
Mister Miracle
Collects: Mister Miracle #1–12
Tom King and Mitch Gerads’ instant classic.
One of my 50 favorite comics of all time!
Dark Nights: Metal
Collects: Dark Nights: Metal #1–6
Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s bombastic, maximalist love letter to DC’s dark multiverse, and a fitting conclusion to their time on New 52 Batman.
DCeased
Collects: DCeased #1–6, DCeased: A Good Day to Die #1
While it’s not Tom Taylor’s best reimagining of the DC Universe (that would be Injustice), DCeased is another spin on the DCU that works far better than it has any right to. Yeah, it’s Marvel Zombies for DC, but Taylor and Trevor Hairsine have their own vision for the zombie apocalypse.
Green Lantern: Far Sector
Collects: Far Sector #1–12
In retrospect, it’s kind of a miracle DC got N.K. Jemesin to write a Green Lantern limited series, like Marvel getting Scorsese to direct 6 episodes of The Hood on Disney+ (a man can dream!). Far Sector is as good as advertised, with Jamal Campbell in top form, and a new Green Lantern, Jo Mullein, added to the DC fabric.
Wonder Woman: Earth One
Collects: Wonder Woman: Earth One Vol. 1–3
Ironically, this would probably be my very last pick for Grant Morrison written DC comics to highlight, but I do appreciate the Wonder Woman love DC is attempting.
Nightwing: Leaping into the Light
Collects: Nightwing (vol. 4) #78–88
Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo attempt to answer what Dick Grayson would do with Bruce Wayne’s wealth.
Static: Season One
Collects: Static: Season One #1–6
You love to see Static and the Milestone Universe getting some love. Finally!
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow
Collects: Supergirl: Woman of Tomorow #1−8
With a James Gunn celebrity endorsement, an impending Supergirl movie inspired by the work, and star-making visuals from Bilquis Evely, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow might be DC’s biggest hit of the 2020s. Ironically, it’s still Tom King’s most tedious narration, but the fact of the matter is a hit’s a hit!
Vertigo Compact ClassicsVertigo was DC’s “mature” oriented comics line from 1992 to 2020 (and seemingly relaunched again for the future!). The line is home to many of my favorite comics like Hellblazer, Preacher and Daytripper, generally (but not always!) set outside of the DC superhero universe. DC’s compacting select entries from the catalog of Vertigo classics, as seen below.
Y: The Last Man: Unmanned
Collects: Y: The Last Man #1–10
One of my 50 favorite comics of all time!
Fables: No More Happily Ever After
Collects: Fables #1–10
Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham (The Big 2 Hams as they’re known in comics circles) beloved Vertigo series gets its Compact debut with the opening ten issues, spanning “Legends in Exile” and “Animal Farm.”
We3
Collects: We3 #1–3
American Vampire: Book One
Collects: American Vampire #1–11
Compact Classic Starter KitDC Compact Comics Box Set
Collects: All-Star Superman, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: The Long Halloween, DC: The New Frontier, Kingdom Come, Watchmen
If you’re introducing someone (maybe even yourself!) to DC Comics, this is the move.
What Else Should DC Turn Into a Compact Comics Edition?These are my picks for stories I’d love to see turned into compact comics in upcoming rounds for DC. Primarily these are taken from my picks for the best comics of all time, but I do take into account the nature of compact comics trying to fit complete stories into each package, making longer runs more difficult to promote this way.
Jack Kirby’s New Gods
While I understand why the compact classics don’t offer anything produced before 1986, DC’s ignoring almost 50 years of history! Let’s rectify that and take a swipe at Marvel with a compact of Kirby’s first year at DC building his Fourth World mythos. The original Fourth World omnibus was just under 400 pages, so honestly, give or take a few issues of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen and you can fit in Kirby’s first salvo covering the first three issues of The Forever People, New Gods, and Mister Miracle. You’re telling me comics readers won’t be here for the origins of Darkseid? Get out of town ya clown!
Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga
Speaking of older Darkseid classics, Paul Levitz and Keith Giffen’s Great Darkness Saga is my favorite Legion of Super-Heroes story, and a great intro to the franchise for all kinds of readers.
Justice League International
All these people watching the 2025 Superman movie, and so few of them understanding the depth of Nathan Fillion’s haircut’s backstory! This one could easily fit the first six issues (titled Justice league), the first rebrand issue (Justice League International #7), and JLI Annual #1. One punch. One punch!
Hellblazer – Dangerous Habits
From the writer of The Boys and Preacher, you’ve got one of the best John Constantine Hellblazer arcs. I’d love to get more of Garth Ennis with his Preacher cohort Steve Dillon’s run on Hellblazer in here, but Dangerous Habits is definitely the place to start.
Batman: Dark Victory
Direct sequel to Long Halloween, with Tim Sale just as strong as ever. You’re gonna compact only the first half of a story? This one’s a no-brainer.
JLA by Grant Morrison
The current state of compact classics are quite lite on the Justice League, and this is the best way to fix that. Mirror the old paperbacks and reproduce the first 9 issues of the run to get that Justice League Unlimited flavor back in people’s lives!
Secret Six
The best Suicide Squad run of the 2000s, with Gail Simone, Nicola Scott, Dale Eaglesham and friends turning Catman, Ragdoll, and Scandal Savage into must read DC Universe staples. The trickiest part here is whether you include the Villains United lead-in to Infinite Crisis or just start straight from Secret Six as its own series.
Gotham Academy
Becky Cloonan, Brendan Fletcher and Karl Kerschl’s Gotham Academy is sweet, charming, and full of the mystery you expect from a classic kids at a boarding school story. The best thing about adding Gotham Academy is it gives another compact edition for younger readers so the kids don’t think it’s all “Jack Kirby” this and “Alan Moore” that.
Midnighter by Steve Orlando
If DC’s looking to promote The Authority, the best modern run comes from Steve Orlando and Aco. This taps into everything that makes the Midnighter so cool – like Batman on performance enhancing drugs – with a queer author who better understands how to characterize a gay man in this position of power.
The post DC Compact Comics Reading List (2026)! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
From the classic tales of Ted Kord to the modern exploits of Jaime Reyes, Blue Beetle has undergone an incredible evolution over the years, offering one of the more intriguing examples of legacy in the DC Universe. The mantle is deeply rooted in comics history with Golden Age origins, transformation by Steve Ditko, seeds of […]
The post Blue Beetle Reading Order! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
There is a great lie about Watchmen.
They repeat the lie over and over again, pretending it says a lot, when it says very little. It is not a lie of malice, but a lie of ignorance. It is a lie predicated on omission of truth. It is a lie that only emerges when one understands history. It is a meaningless statement presented as meaningful to those who don’t know better.
It is the first lie of American comics that every new reader is confronted with, when surveying the scene of the superhero.
And it is a lie that holds, despite everything else.
The lie is this:
Watchmen made the superhero dark and messed-up. It debased the innocent icons of youth, and brought about an age of ruinous darkness- a Dark Age as it’s called. It sapped the color and joy out of the bright and poppy supergods, and it’s the tiresome tome we all have to eternally deal with. It is the anti-christ to the divine ideal of the superhero, and Alan Moore its ultimate symbol; the bitter, distant dad who’ll never be happy, who’ll never be satisfied, and will forever spit venom against all that is holy and good and decent. Moore is the father of darkness, the dread and despair that haunts the superhero like a ghost, a horror, something to be exorcised and ‘purified’ while at the same time tapping into and absorbing his primal power.
None of this is true, but the industry bends over backwards to try and make it true, to make it seem as such. If they believe in it hard enough, it has to be true, right? It is the lie much of modern American superhero comics and the ‘industry’ around it is built upon.
And the lie works, and is predicated upon one simple principle:
The (Imagined) Innocent Past. The Ideal Age Of Purity, Nobility, and All-Ages Decency. The Great Time Before – when things were made up of sugar and spice and everything nice. After all, there must be an era of light for the light to vanish, no? A ‘darkening’ and a ‘dark age’ can only be contextualized and made sense of with the presence of a prior ‘brighter’ and ‘better’ era. It’s what you need to sell the narrative. It’s the period you need to make it work. And that period?
It’s The Silver Age Of Comics.
This is the second lie of American comics that all are presented with, like gospel.
That the ‘Silver Age’ as it is called (a period beginning in the mid 1950’s to the 1970’s) was ever innocent and decent and nice. That it was all beautiful wonders and imaginative delights, and all was as it should be. A time of super-dogs, super-families, and great, big, imaginative ideas. A golden age, beyond the actual era dubbed The Golden Age which preceded it.
People talk of mini-supermen being shot out of Superman’s hands, they talk of Krypto The Super-Dog and Supergirl, but they have no context for them. They do not understand, for instance, that none of these things were particularly novel and were originally done in The Golden Age era comics of Captain Marvel in the 1940s. That before there ever was a Supergirl, there was Mary Marvel, that before Krypto The Super-Dog, there was Hoppy The Marvel Bunny. They don’t realize that the very same man that made Supergirl and Krypto was also the defining Captain Marvel, and they don’t even know to ask why he was even working at DC.
They do not know that Captain Marvel and its publisher Fawcett were deliberately sued into oblivion by National Comics Publications, the company that would become DC Comics, because Captain Marvel was just too damn popular and sold too well and that bothered the IP owners of Superman. If you can’t surpass the competition, destroy it, this was the animating motto. And so Otto Binder, the man who made Mary Marvel, who wrote ‘The Marvel Family’, the first superhero family of comics, who was a key figure in the first proper ‘superhero shared universe’ of comics (that was destroyed and torn down because it was too damn popular in the eyes of DC’s predatory owners), would eventually end up working at DC.
Even Superman, the golden boy and icon of DC, who’d initially started out as a hot-blooded champion of the oppressed changed. The process of ‘softening’ had long begun, as Superman went from a pulpy Doc Savage-inspired figure killing wife-beaters and other bastards without hesitation to the Binder-era version far more akin to Captain Marvel than ever before. Superman’s biggest and brightest ideas would be cover songs of the once-richer Captain Marvel concepts, except most would barely realize it. Fawcett would become something to be stripped for parts to be devoured by DC, for that is what DC is wont to do. Their greatest failure being perhaps that they couldn’t do it to Marvel.
That is comics. For that is how it all began. Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson or The Major as he’s often called, was the man who would bridge the pulps and comic strips that had long existed into the form that had yet to exist. He’d give birth to what we now consider ‘comic books’ through his venture National Allied Publications in 1934-1935. He was the publisher’s founder, but not for long, as he’d be deep in debt to Harry Donnenfeld, another pulp publisher and powerful entrepreneur. By 1937, he’d be forced out and would lose it all to Harry Donnenfeld, who along with his lawyer Jack Liebowitz would become the owner of the now Detective Comics Inc. And then in 1938 the people at this new company would meet with two kids named Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster. And they’d trick these two kids into giving up this hot new idea called Superman, which then they would forever own, with the two kids getting little to nothing for decades.
That is comics history. That is DC’s history. Its very founder, the father of the comic book and this entire landscape, expelled out. The very fathers of Superman and the superhero given bare scraps and little else. This is the true darkness that haunts the whole terrain, now and forever, the original sin of comic books and superheroes – exploitation and the mistreatment of the very real people. It is indivisibly linked to the work on page and cannot be separated, for that work has a price, and a cost, and few seem to understand its immensity.
And that is what brings us to The Silver Age, the imagined and constructed ‘golden age’ in cultural consciousness, when it was anything but. People pretend what is on page is ‘as it should have been’, like these stories just magically pour out with no context or material realities informing them. The Silver Age, in truth, was far darker, bleaker, and horrible than any ‘Dark Age’ that followed. For it was the age of the Comics Code Authority, formed in 1954 after the vile conservative fervor built up by Frederick Wertham in the 1950’s about how your child might gasp become gay by reading an issue of Batman. It was an era of intense suppression, born out of catering to blatant right-wing White Supremacist ideology, wherein the conservatives tried to choke the damn life out of comics as an art-form and control it intensely.
The code had something of a precedent and predecessor in the form of the 1948’s ACMP Code (drawing upon the Hays Code of the era), but it was one that was frequently and largely ignored by many and meant little, particularly by 1954, which is why you had the stronger CCA formed and established. Look at the above and see how oppressive it is. What people forget when they naively celebrate the Silver Age as a wonderland of fantasy and imagination is just how much of the material and the ideas and the general landscape had to cater to and fit with the Code. It’s why you get a plethora of Cop Heroes, which just neatly fit into the framework the code likes. It’s why true radical politics or critique of systems also became difficult. It’s a rule system designed for dull propagandist fare. That there were creators who were talented, brilliant and skilled enough to operate within the confines of this hellish system to create powerful work? That’s the magic, that’s the miracle.
Counter to popular presentation, this wasn’t the era where imaginative ideas ran free. It was one where imagination itself was confined and constrained, as American Comics lost its entire future. Every genre except ‘superhero’ was choked to death, and those who dared depict Black people as Astronauts? Why, they had to go.
It was an age of bigoted, regressive values and horrible censorship. People talk about the brilliant ideas and work that got made amidst it. They are in awe of the creators and their incredible talents. But they act as if this history is absolute, that this is how it always would have been, like there were no possibilities. They do not wonder – what if all these brilliant, legendary creators at the absolute height of their powers, in their absolute prime, weren’t constrained and limited and could truly make anything? What if they didn’t have their hands tied? What if we never got them limited to just 40% of 50% of their true potential and locked into a narrow hallway of the kinds of comics they could make in the mainstream space?
They don’t ask:
What could have been?
How much better and different could it all have been?
They don’t ask what we lost. The gravity has not dawned on them to really consider: How much did we lose? All those years, all those possibilities, just stamped out, never even allowed into being. So much damage, at such a crucial point for the medium and form, that can never be undone. They never dream of the world where comics weren’t choked to homogenized white boy superhero fare under Marvel/DC and could’ve been so much more. Diversity was stolen from us, not just racial diversity, but also genre diversity and the diversity of the actual stories possible.
There was a time when Romance Comics were at the top of the world, but that world is now long gone, as everything got flattened out into superhero fare, as everything was rolled into the priorities of crafting together a Superhero Shared Universe in the ’60s. There was a world of weird EC comics, wild war comics, hysterical comedies, all of which did well, but it’s all long gone now. The ways in which those genres could have developed on their own or been effective? We’ll never know, because it all died out to prop up the good ol’ CCA-abiding superhero.
The Silver Age isn’t to be celebrated as a naive wonderland of whimsy and imagination. It is to be celebrated only for the resilience of its creatives who worked under hellish censorship and circumstances and still made worthwhile work that still speaks to us now, despite endless constraints and nonsense eternally limiting them. It is the true dark age of comics, for underneath all the bright colors and big smiles and Americana imagery lies the dark reality of conservative machinations. It’s the image of nuclear family every conservative ad is selling you, which is meant to be happy, but is in truth full of darkness and sinister horrors lurking beneath.
It’s why there is a sinister or disturbing quality to many a silver age story or character or certain moments, even if they aren’t played obviously as such. The glossy censored presentation of America makes some of them, if anything, arguably much more disturbing or distressing at times. That is the truth. As many neuroses and notions were put into the works in more ‘sublimated’ fashion or in a more abstract manner. All that occurred in the periods afterwards was that the creators didn’t have to do resort to that, and could just openly show or do certain things that they previously might have shied away from. It’s what makes all the rose-tinted views of The Silver Age frustrating, given its material realities. It is not a past to mourn the loss and death of nostalgically, as though it were an age of innocence. It is all the union-busting and mistreatment of the ordinary man to fill the pockets of a richer one, whilst publishing books about heroism.
Here’s a sampling of truth:
Mark Evanier: Towards the end of your career at DC, there was an attempt to form a writer’s union…
John Broome: Oh, yeah. I developed a fixed idea that DC should pay us for reprint material. When they reprinted a whole story without paying us, that was a stealing of our abilities. It was stealing something away from us. I knew that, in movies and television and ASCAP [the composers’ union], they paid royalties…so I thought comics should pay royalties and I talked to the other writers. I didn’t talk to the artists…they were above me, anyway.
There were five or six writers — Eddie Herron, Bob Haney, Otto Binder, Gardner Fox, a few others. I think it took six or eight months but one day, I got them all together — all in the same room, ready to do what we had to do, which was to march into Liebowitz’s office. Liebowitz was the millionaire boss. We marched in and demanded reprint rights. And Liebowitz, who I understand is still alive…he’s about 95 or something.
Julius Schwartz: Or more!
Broome: He didn’t waste any time. He said, “Boys, I’ll give you a two dollar raise,” and immediately, my union collapsed! (Audience laughs) That was the end of the first union at DC.
Evanier: Can you give us a year on that? About ’68 or so?
Broome: By ’68, I was already cashing out of the picture. It would be earlier. Maybe ’65 would be about right.
Evanier: Now were there other grievances besides the reprints? Didn’t some of the guys want health insurance?
Broome: Maybe. I think maybe they had other demands, but that’s the only part I recall. Liebowitz was afraid of me. He knew I was a danger to him. I was going to cost him money! (Audience laughs). So he didn’t like me but he really couldn’t get rid of me too easily.
That’s the reality of the Silver Age, where much of the horrific exploitation was, if anything, firmly cemented, while companies collected ideas at an even more rapid pace and built out their super-shared universes, as the darkness only grew, whilst a sinister shiny sheen of innocence and smiles adorned the pages.
Perhaps this is best expressed by the tale of Jim Shooter as a literal child at the age of 14, who was horrifically mistreated in nigh supervillainous fashion by Mort Weisinger, the very man behind overseeing Superman in that period, and who also co-created Aquaman and Green Arrow:
First of all, my family needed the money. Badly. Second, my editor, Mort Weisinger, mean as a snake at his nicest, would have screamed at me more than usual if I was ever late.
Mort would call me every Thursday night, right after the Batman TV show to go over whatever I’d delivered that week. […] The calls mostly consisted of him bellowing at me. “You fucking moron! Learn to spell! What the hell is this character holding? Is that supposed to be a gun? It looks like a carrot! These layouts have to be clear, retard!” When you’re 14 and the big, important man upon whom your family’s survival depends calls you up to tell you you’re an imbecile, it makes an impression…
It got to the point where any time I’d hear a phone ring I’d clench up, white knuckled. Very Pavlovian. Even in school, or some other place that was ostensibly safe, a ringing phone jolted me.
Mort used to tell me I was his “charity case.” He said that the only reason he kept me on was because my family would starve otherwise.
The net effect of Mort’s honking at me was slowing me down. I’d sit there for hours, immobilized, useless, unproductive, because I was sure that anything I put on the paper would be wrong and therefore, Mort would scream at me. My mother would occasionally plead with me. She’d say, “We really need a check.” I started working in my room, sitting on my bed to keep my lack of production more private. Every once in a while she’d come upstairs, look at the blank page on my lap board and start crying. That was tough. She meant no harm. But that was tough.
At some point, my fear of delivering work that Mort would rip me to shreds over was eclipsed by the fear of failing to deliver, or delivering late, which would be worse.
So no, there was no ideal era of wonder and magic, no imagined golden age of the past from which things dilapidated. There was only censorship, union-busting, exploitation, and we’d only manage to escape the shackles of one of those things once the Silver Age was done. The rest? We’re still dealing with them, even to this day.
So no, Watchmen did not make superhero comics darker, much like Harry Osborn or Roy Harper being a junkie didn’t make them ‘darker’. The fact is, these things happened when people in the 1970’s firmly got beyond the shadow of the CCA and said ‘Screw it’. These were people no longer bothering with the Code and just doing as they liked. And that led to the 1970’s wherein you saw some really fun experimentation and weird, interesting comics pop up, and the slow march of progress shirking off the Code began, and it is in that tradition that Watchmen belongs. It is part of that long, hard, difficult march forward. It is part of a specific history.
Comics, freed from the shackles of the CCA, were always going to get ‘darker’ when compared to the era of rigid censorship. That was inevitable. Whatever works managed to successfully leap free from the tendrils of that censory past to truly be bold and worthwhile on a big scale? Folks were always going to try to shallowly imitate them to try and recreate their monumental success. If it wasn’t Watchmen (or Batman: The Dark Knight Returns), it would’ve been something else. That too was inevitable. And besides, what makes Watchmen remarkable isn’t its ‘dark’ or ‘darker’ superheroes, for Alan Moore had already done Miracleman by the time of its publication. No, what made it remarkable was how well-crafted it was, its formal boldness, and how it exploded the cold war zeitgeist and politics of its era for powerful genre fiction that had as much to say on American Imperialism as it did power fantasies of masked vigilantes. It was drawn and lettered impeccably by Dave Gibbons, a master of the ‘British Clean’ school of comics art, his artistic forefathers traceable to the likes of the incredible Don Lawrence, and colored evocatively by John Higgins. It was a tome of masterful ambition and ‘Comics as a Novel’ and it was unlike anything that had been done as a pure display of craft to tell a genre story, and one with that much ambition.
Watchmen didn’t make comics darker.
Watchmen made comics better.
For every million shitty frauds who tried to copy it and made shallow rubbish, it gave us legions of Neil Gaimans, Grant Morrisons, Garth Ennises, Kieron Gillens, Jonathan Hickmans, and many, many more. Moore, Gibbons, and Higgins gave a gift to the form. They made an ultimate showcase for the form and its power and potential, and displayed the allure of comics as an artform to a wider cultural audience. They brought in a plethora of people who may not have otherwise gotten into comics, and showed them the magic. And even those brilliant creators who didn’t care for it had to respond or come up with approaches for themselves in a post-Watchmen world, and that led to a fascinating world. It’s why and how we have Keith Giffen’s plethora of Post-Watchmen comics from JLI to his Five Years Later run on Legion.
But also, on a fundamental material level, it changed things. When Alan Moore fell out with DC on the matter of principle and split with them over the issue of Creator Rights, his strong stance is what led to better contracts and terms for those that would come after him. For if nobody ever makes noise or stands up to the powers that be, how would things get better? Moore happily did the job, for which many benefited, including the likes of Gaimans and Morrisons. Moore’s work and its success is what gave us The British Invasion and led us to Vertigo Comics, and everything since. It is, after all, in Vertigo Comics that we’d see the restoration of so many genres and varied approaches in mainstream comics that had long been buried away. From Sandman to Kill Your Boyfriend to Preacher and plenty more, a whole world of possibilities opened up for people. Moore inspired millions to pick up a pen and get writing and drawing. He inspired both professionals and amateurs. He inspired people, and those that he helped inspire inspired legions more. And ultimately, Moore’s values and his conviction to his principles helped and aided those that followed him.
Moore didn’t unleash darkness upon comics. Moore unleashed a challenge. And like any challenge, legions failed at it, for such is the nature of any challenge. One cannot blame Moore or his work any more than one can blame a classic band whose great original songs have had endless rubbish cover songs and riffs. The failings of the lesser artists are not the failings of the greater artist who asked the legions to rise up to their challenge.
Moore is not the bitter father, but the gentle, humorous giant from Northampton. A guy you could grab a lovely drink with at the pub, a man who reads stories to his grandkids, who puts on elaborate make-up and performs delightful roles, and just loves to chat about art and culture and people. Alan Moore is the man who mentors and teaches Neil Gaiman how to write comics, who has a laugh with Michael Moorcock and Eddie Campbell, and gives lectures at universities and tries to care for his hometown of Northampton with a fierce love. When people talk of Alan Moore, they hardly talk of Alan Moore The Person or even Alan Moore The Artist, instead they talk of Alan Moore The Idea. And this is not Alan Moore, not in any real material sense. That’s a Ghost of a Dark God that has been conjured up by the collective of comics nerds and companies who wish to not face the real darkness and rot at the root of American comics. They’d rather construct an easy narrative of The Bitter Old Man than accept the realities of the status quo. It’s easy to deride a man as ‘crazy’ for having spirituality or faith in magic, for not bowing down to corporate overlords and being their lapdog, and for speaking bluntly, truthfully, with class consciousness and critical awareness of fan-culture and how that’s exploited in comics. But it’s harder to acknowledge all the realities he’s speaking to, and the difficult truths he’s imparting and symbolizes.
It’s why he matters, it’s why Watchmen matters.
And they always will.
For more in “Who Watched the Watchmen”…
The post Who Watched the Watchmen? Watchmen and The Darkness Within appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
Everyone knows Virgil Hawkins, or Static, from the Static Shock TV Show, but some (like me before writing this guide) might not know his history with Milestone Media. It was made by black creators who wanted a universe with black and more diverse heroes, and they nailed it. The comics discussed problems of the time – many that we still have today to some degree – and had characters of different ethnicities, nationalities, and sexualities, but that weren’t only defined by them. They were so much more. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to guarantee great sales.
Most of these stories were set in Dakota, making the universe also called the Dakotaverse. Virgil lives in Dakota and gained his powers during a gang fight there; making him a “Gang Baby,” what the people who obtained powers because of the fight are called. His best run by far is the original Static by Milestone, but he also has stories in the main DC Universe and the new initiative, Milestone Returns.
Since I was younger, I’ve loved Static; Virgil has all the great traces of the greatest teen heroes: he’s powerful, your age, and funnier than you. But what the comic does best is making him heroic and human. The chapters try to bring discussions, but it’s not a message you have to understand at the end, the characters are literally talking about it. Virgil, and many of the characters featured, seem like real people, with complex opinions and personalities. That’s something I really hope the newer comics manage to do too; it’ll definitely be great.
MilestoneMilestone Compendium One
Collects: Blood Syndicate #1-12; Hardware #1-12; Icon #1-10; Static #1-8; Xombi #0-11; Shadow Cabinet #0
Static is the perfect version of the cartoon. You have the same vibes, but it has a lot more depth. Virgil is a more complex character, but the universe around him also seems more “alive.” He has his villains but also interacts with other characters from the Dakotaverse.
After a while, Virgil draws the attention of Holocaust, a key figure in organized crime, who attempts to recruit him. I have to admit, I love arcs when young superheroes work for villains for some time. The way they reconnect with the meaning of being a hero and rebel against their employer always excites me, and Static’s version definitely didn’t disappoint.
But the best part of this volume was the Commando X arc and all the racial discussions it brings (that are still relevant today). He is a black supremacist constantly citing conspiracies who believes his cause is just and more important than all casualties. His arc explores how easy it’s to fall into bigotry.
Static Cut (every comic he’s in): Static #1-8, Shadow Cabinet #0.
Milestone Compendium Two
Collects: Blood Syndicate #13-23; Hardware #13-21; Icon #11-21; Static # 9-20; Shadow Cabinet #1-4; Steel #6-7, Superboy #6-7, Superman: The Man of Steel # 35-36, Worlds Collide # 1
From issues #9 through #13, we see Virgil interacting more with Gang Babies. It’s really interesting, because, besides the fun part of seeing different kinds of powers, we see how different people ended up involved and their motivations. Not to mention that we see different sides of being in a gang; like all organizations, they are not only “good” or only “bad,” mainly when some kind of interest/goal is involved. While reading these stories, imagining how Virgil would deal with that was definitely a big expectation I had.
Since the start of Static, one thing that kept bothering me was the casual homophobia, but when I started the arc “What are little boys made of,” I knew it would finally be discussed. It might be my favorite arc; it’s really well done and real, even if they don’t say it out loud, we know many people still believe in the same discriminating arguments shown in the comic. The villains present in the story are all related in some way to the main themes being discussed, so the conversations feel even denser.
Static Cut: Static #9-13, Worlds Collide #1, Superman: The Man of Steel #35-36, Static #14, Superboy #7, Steel #7, Static #15-17, Icon #20, Static #18-20.
Unfortunately, most of Static’s journey at Milestones hasn’t been collected yet. But you can still find it on Kindle, take a look at the links and issues below.
Icon #22
Static (1993-1997)
Static #21-25, Long Hot Summer #1, Long Hot Summer #2, Static #26-27, Long Hot Summer #3, Static #28-33, Heroes #1, Static #34, Heroes #2, Static #35-36, Heroes #3, Heroes #4, Static #37, Heroes #5, Static #38-39, Heroes #6, Static #40, Hardware #44, Static #41-45.
Static Shock Vol. 1: Rebirth of the Cool
Collects: Static Shock: Rebirth of the Cool #1-4
Rebirth of the Cool is the perfect comeback for Virgil. Not only do we get a few good jokes out of the whole cancellation thing, but we also read a story about Static back to being a hero and what it means to be one.
After the death of a friend, Virgil gave up on being a hero. But when someone starts kidnapping all Gang Babies, he is forced to overcome the incident and be Static again.
DCDan DiDio, a writer and executive editor at DC, announced that some characters from the Milestone universe would integrate into the mainline DC Universe. Static, for example, joined the Teen Titans and even had a solo series in the “New 52” launch. Unfortunately, most weren’t really good and couldn’t bring back the essence of Static to the new stories.
Terror Titans
Collects: Terror Titans #1-6
Static Cut: Terror Titans #3-4, #6.
Teen Titans: Changing of the Guard
Collects: Teen Titans #62-69
Static Cut: Teen Titans #68-69
Milestone Forever #1
Milestone Forever #2
Teen Titans: Deathtrap
Collects: Teen Titans Annual 2009, Titans #12-13, Teen Titans #70, Vigilante #4-6
Static Cut: Titans #12, Teen Titans #70, Titans #13.
Superman: Mon-El Vol 1
Collects: Action Comics #874, Action Comics Annual #10, Superman #684-690
Static Cut: Superman #688
The Brave and the Bold: Milestone
Collects: The Brave and the Bold #24-26
Static Cut: The Brave and the Bold #24.
Titans 3: Fractured
Collects: Titans #14-22
Static Cut: Titans #17
Teen Titans: Child’s Play
Collects: Teen Titans #71-78
Static Cut: Teen Titans #72, #75.
Teen Titans 13: The Hunt for Raven
Collects: Teen Titans #79-87
Static Cut: Teen Titans #79, #83-87.
Brightest Day Omnibus
Collects: Brightest Day #0-24
Just a short cameo in which he helps the Titans save people.
Static Cut: Brightest Day #23.
Flashpoint
Collects: Flashpoint #1-5
Static Cut: Flashpoint #5.
Static Shock Vol. 1: Supercharged
Collects: Static Shock #1-8
The story starts with a S.T.A.R. Labs test pilot running amok the city causing destruction and Static trying to stop him. After saving him, Virgil starts being pursued by an unknown team of bad guys. It’s a common kind of story, but it could work. Also, it tries to honor the things we liked about the older comics, like his friendship with Frieda and Hardware, but still does something new.
The thing is… almost everything else is bad. It not only fails miserably in trying to capture the vibe of the original, but the new stuff is disappointing. However, the biggest problem for me is that it doesn’t attempt to create any kind of political/social discussions like Milestone’s Static did.
I wouldn’t recommend this, but it might be a good idea if you want to see something very different with Static.
Milestone ReturnsStatic: Season One
Collects: Milestone Returns: Infinite Edition, Static (Season One) #1-6
I really liked Milestone Returns: Infinite Edition and I bet you will too. They built the universe around a BLM protest. The cops used a new chemical to stop the pacific protestants, a bunch of students, but it started changing some of them and giving them powers. Can you guess who was there? Yeah, Virgil was one of the protesters, and that’s how he got his powers this time.
But other characters, like Hardware, Holocaust, Icon, and Rocket, are affected by what happened. I’m definitely interested to see how they will interact and what this universe will become in a few years.
Static (Season One) is what the New 52 Static comics wanted to be. It does something fresh, but you still have the many things you liked about the cartoon and the old comics. Vita Ayala creates a world that is on fire, and the characters know that; there’s always a sense of danger around the corner. The police and the government are capturing Gang Babies, the people who got powers after the protest, and are being helped by Hotstreak, Virgil’s high school bully who now can control fire.
The comic does a great job showcasing Virgil and his relationship with his family; it was definitely one of the things I enjoyed and thought about the most while reading. I really want the next volume to be more focused on his friends and the Gang Babies, but I also NEED it to keep developing the relationship with his family. You can’t go wrong with this version of Virgil’s story; the story is great, and the characters intrigue you.
Icon & Rocket: Season One
Collects: Icon & Rocket: Season One #1-6
Virgil tells Rocket that he is Static and (even though she doesn’t really care about his secret identity) helps her and Icon fight an alien cockroach.
Static Cut: Icon & Rocket: Season One #5-6.
Milestones In History (2022) #1
Milestones in History is a special issue made to celebrate Black History Month. Some laws and rules are limiting how teachers can teach Black History, or even making it outright illegal. The comic has the mission of telling different stories you probably won’t hear in schools or movies. And all of them are narrated by a character from the Dakotaverse, like Static, Rocket, and Hardware.
This isn’t extremely important if you want to understand more about Virgil, but, hey, it’s pretty cool and important, so make sure you check it out.
Blood Syndicate: Season One
Collects: Blood Syndicate: Season One #1-6
Just a small cameo. Virgil appears in a vision.
Static Cut: Blood Syndicate: Season One #3
Static: Shadows of Dakota
Shadows of Dakota is the sequel to Static: Season One and is set to launch in February 2023. Vita Ayala and Nikolas Draper-Ivey will return and introduce Ebon, inspired by the character from the cartoon, who will hurt many innocent people in his quest to find his brother. Surely another banger!
The post Static Shock Reading Order! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
Created by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino, she was introduced as Emiko Lacroix, the daughter of Komodo, an enemy of Green Arrow. Later she found out she was Oliver’s half-sister, and then she decided to start being his partner. Emiko found out more about herself and became a hero, assuming the mantle of Red Arrow. […]
The post Emiko Queen (Red Arrow) Reading Order! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
When reading Lois Lane, the question arises time and time again: Why is Greg Rucka writing a Lois Lane Maxi-Series in 2019? The meaning of that question changes as the series goes on. The first time the question is asked is before you begin reading it and you wonder why Greg Rucka is writing it. […]
The post Screaming at No One (Lois Lane: Enemy of the State Review!) appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
Conceptually, I don’t actually like Injustice. The premise for this entire comics universe stems first from the 1 on 1 fighting video game, and the brief story of that video game is far from extraordinary. The story of Injustice begins when Joker and Harley Quinn steal a nuke, launch it at Metropolis, and trick Superman […]
The post Injustice Reading Order (DC Comics Universe)! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
For the uninitiated who saw it, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) opened a door in the DC Universe that they may not have known existed. Birds of Prey isn’t exactly an underground property – after all, not just any group of heroes can inspire an ill-conceived early 2000’s WB […]
The post Huntress Reading Order! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
Starting in 2019, DC formalized their YA comics with the DC Ink imprint dedicated to standalone graphic novels set outside DC Comics expansive continuity. The end result is a growing list of accessible, high quality graphic novels from talented YA creators, and many times writers and artists known to standard floppy comic book fans. Unlike […]
The post DC Comics Young Adult Graphic Novels List! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
Universes change, but some things never do. Is Victor Stone a promising young student devastated by a science experiment gone wrong or a football star saved by alien technology after a brutal accident? Though origins are mutable, Victor’s essential character is not. At once a founding member of the Justice League as well as a […]
The post Cyborg Reading Order appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
Ever since I picked up the Black-and-White Vertigo Comics series Punk Rock Jesus on a comic shop impulse whim, I’ve been hooked on the art and storytelling of Sean Gordon Murphy. That trend continued through his incredible art on books like The Wake and Tokyo Ghost, ultimately building to his star turn with DC’s Batman: White Knight universe. Related Reading […]
The post Batman White Knight Reading Order & Comics List! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
Hill House debuted in 2019 as a DC Comics pop-up imprint (it technically falls under the broader DC “Black Label” book categorization) with a focus on horror comics curated by writer Joe Hill. The son of Stephen King, Joe Hill is best known in the comics world for his long-running and celebrated series with artist […]
The post Hill House (DC) Comics Reading List! appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
At least once per year, my local comic shop runs a “newer comics” sale, where books that are still on their shelves that came out at least a month ago are all $1.50. It’s a great sale, and I typically use it to obsessively collect runs I wasn’t pulling in real time, or in some […]
The post DC Black Label Reading List appeared first on Comic Book Herald.
DC Comics’ Birds of Prey are a (typically) all women team of heroes, with an initial core of Barbara Gordon (Batgirl, Oracle) and Dinah Lance (Black Canary). The team lineup is most traditionally connected to the Batman/Gotham comics universe, although membership has extended to non-Gotham regulars like Big Barda and Hawk and Dove. Although the […]
The post Birds of Prey Reading Order appeared first on Comic Book Herald.