Starting Point : Superman : Secret Origin by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank
This is a difficult book for me to talk about without fanboying out too much. Johns and Frank gave us the perfect introduction to Superman and, In my opinion, DC Comics in general.
John’s Green Lantern and Snyder’s Batman(More on that later) were the reasons I got into DC comics and when I find out that Johns wrote for Superman for a bit then I had to check it out because it was my favorite writer writing my favorite character.
Secret Origin manages to tell a story we know by heart but do it in a new way. His Clark is someone who truly just wants to help but doesn’t know how. It follows him from his teenage years in Smallville and learning about who he is, all the way up to working at the daily planet and revealing himself as Superman to the public. The way he writes Superman is exactly how I want him portrayed : Strongest Being on the planet, but still learning how to be a better hero every single day. This is who Superman truly is, in so many ways he’s the ideal for us to strive towards but then in so many other ways he’s just like us. That’s one of the many reasons that he’s my favorite hero.
Of course, I can’t talk about this book and my favorite hero without talking about my favorite villain. Lex Luthor is the perfect antithesis of everything Superman stands for, he’s selfish, bitter, pessimistic but it’s ultimately because, like Clark, he feels like he doesn’t belong among these people. They’re very different reasons but ultimately it’s their greatest downfall. Lex thinks he’s better than everyone while Clark doesn’t even know if he should be considered among them. That’s also why they’re my favorite rivalry.
Black Canary : Kicking and Screaming by Brendan Fletcher and Annie Wu
Black Canary is an interesting character because she’s been around a lot longer than most people would think but while being a solid character she’s never had one big run that took off. Chuck Dixon had her, Oracle and Huntress team up in Birds Of Prey in the early 2000’s and those are pretty good but we wanted a starring role for our favorite siren and for that we turn to Fletcher and Wu’s fantastic first graphic novel.
While still continuing from some of the things that happened in the New 52 versions of Team 7 and Birds Of Prey, Black Canary is a great jumping on point for new readers. All you really need to know is that she has a super scream and is now performing with a rock band. Just go from there, you’ll pick up everything else along the way. It’s a great story that allows people to get to know more about Dinah as a character. My only hesitance is that I haven’t read the second volume of the comic and the first one ends on a bit of a cliffhanger but I’m sure it’s all still written very well and that they deliver a story worth reading.
The Flash : Move Forward by Brian Buccellato and Francis Manapul.
The Flash is a character that has an incredibly difficult history to traverse but that’s why I’m here. I considered tossing you into the deep end of the pool with The Flash : Rebirth(Still fantastic and should be read.) but I decided this was the better starting point.
Manapul and Buccellato made a comic truly unlike any other. They shared story duties while Manapul covered the art and it’s his art that ultimately drew me to this book in the first place. I would compare to a modern Carmine Infantino, constantly finding new and exciting ways to get the story moving and to invest people in what’s happening while maintaining the traditional feel of a comic book. He’s truly one of the top creators out there and is definitively one of my favorites.
The story is pretty easy to jump into even with complex themes like The Speed Force and Cloning that are made accessible to new readers without being watering down anything that was important to what came before. I think it thrives by not making the entirety of the first arc just about another villain and instead focuses on a story that hits Barry a bit closer to home. We get to really know what a great character Barry is in this run which is another reason I love it.
Green Arrow : The Longbow Hunters by Mike Grell
The Longbow Hunters is widely considered to be one of the best Green Arrow stories of all time and it’s clear to see why. Mike Grell delivers on a solid script while introducing multiple new facets to GA that will be part of his character until even the most current iterations of the character.
I really enjoyed this because it has all of the grit and realism of The Dark Knight Returns without the cynicism or the defamation of characters. Oliver and Dinah are both great in this and they really stand out as people who genuinely want to make the world better. It’s a rather basic storyline involving the drug trade but it’s worth sticking with to see how it ends.
The only issue I had with this story is there’s a lot of graphic violence against women. It’s still a great story and everything works out well but it definitely isn’t a story for children.
Nightwing : Traps and Trapezes By Kyle Higgins and Eddy Barrows
Look, I get it, Yes I reference The New 52 a lot and a lot of fans didn’t like The New 52 but I loved it and think it offered the perfect starting points for a lot of characters. Nightwing included. Nightwing is one of my favorite comic book characters and this run features some of my favorite stories of his including an updated take on Haly’s Circus that just works so well within the story of Gotham.
Dick Grayson has just recently returned to the role of Nightwing after his tenure as Batman and while trying to figure who he needs to be now that Bruce is back he also finds out that Haly’s circus is coming back to Gotham for the first time since the death of his parents. Dick reunites with a lot of old friends and even some old enemies when people start dying. Dick has to figure out what’s going on at the circus while coming to terms with a pretty massive bombshell about his own family. It’s a great lead-in for Nightwing and for one of my favorite Batman stories out there.
Justice League Dark/Constantine
For Justice League Dark newcomers, I have to be honest with you all: as much as I love the Dark side (hilarious Star Wars reference) of the DC Universe, Justice League Dark itself really didn’t come into relevance or even remarkable quality until the New 52. With that run, it brought in some more interesting storylines and culminated into a relevant story with real ramifications throughout the rest of the comics at the time. However, some people don’t enjoy the larger scale stories and prefer self-contained tales. For them, I have to admit that JLD does not offer much service there either. For any new reader who would like to dip their toes into the JLD, I have to recommend the individual runs rather than the titular series.
For example, the New 52 offered terrific runs of both Animal Man and Swamp Thing, presenting an easily digestible entry into the lore of the spiritual DC universe and introducing interesting and likable characters, particularly Animal Man. These titles will introduce the tone of the greater JLD without bogging new readers down with elaborate lore and big picture storylines.
As for Constantine, the direction I point you in depends heavily on what iteration of the character you would like to explore. For more old-school exorcist Constantine, you would want to look at pre-New 52 runs. Jamie Delano is the original writer of the series of comics that featured John Constantine as the main character, and his run offers some of the best Constantine and JLD stories available. The rest of the run has varying amounts of quality, but it offers the best basis for understanding the character as he was originally written.
If you want more of a modern Constantine that interacts with the greater DC universe, the New 52 actually offers some solid stories about the character. They can become a bit heavy-handed and, in some cases, masturbatory in their representation of his power, but they offer solid characterization and enough witty British humor to satisfy anyone interested in getting more familiar with the character. If you start your reading with Swamp Thing, Animal Man, and a good mix of old and new Constantine, then you will be at an excellent point to jump into the mainstream JLD comics with appreciation for the characters and familiarity with the magical and pseudo-spiritual side of the DC universe.
As an aside, I have not yet read any of the Rebirth: Hellblazer comics that have been published most recently. However, my LCS owner swears by them for anyone who loves the character.
Batman : Zero Year By Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo
If you are going to read about Batman then you absolutely have to start here. I can give name after name of stories that are worth checking out but this one. This ones stands above them all. One of the main reasons that I love Snyder and Capullo’s run on Batman is the fact that Gotham is a living breathing character just like the members of teh Bat-Family themselves. You never really doubt Batman’s mission no matter how bad things get, you continue to believe that he can truly make things better and there’s no better example of that than Zero Year.
Zero Year was their take on Batman’s Origin but instead of just following the basic tropes of showing the gun, the pearls falling and the boy in the alley they put a spin on it that made it fresh while still being true to the character. The things I mentioned were all in there but there’s so much more added to it. It covers Bruce’s first year as Batman while fighting the Red Hood gang for the first few issues and then it quickly changes to becoming one of the best Riddler stories ever told. Snyder’s strength comes from his knowledge of his characters. The only real issue with reading Snyder’s work on the character is the fact that he makes it hard to read writers who miss out on key elements of what makes the mythos so interesting. Zero Year is absolutely essential reading for anyone who’s interested in Batman and in comics in general.
