Getting started with DC

mrfusion

I've been a Marvel guy all my life, never reading much DC. I know most of the top tier characters ( Batman, Superman, WW, GL, etc) but I've never really looked that far over the other side of the fence. If I were just starting out, what would you DC fans consider the Top 10 or 20 things I should seek out and read to get an understanding and a respect for the DCU. I'm talking specific runs (i.e JLA issues 325-340) or Trades. Help open the eyes of a Marvel Zombie. Also important might be what to avoid that might convince me that I made the right choice when I "Made Mine Marvel"!

mrfusion

Oh, and PLEASE! lets not turn this into a Marvel vs DC thread. I'm genuinely interested in seeking out what people consider the best of DC.

Brack

Here's what got me into the DC Universe (as opposed to Vertigo/Helix etc.)

John Ostrander & Kim Yale's Suicide Squad (I borrowed these of a friend in the mid-90s)
Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol
Morrison and Porter's JLA and the DC One Million event.
Mark Waid's Flash & Impulse
Ennis and McCrea's Hitman
James Robinson's Starman
Ordway & Krause's Power of Shazam

Weirdly, of all those things, Hitman is currently the most relevant today, as it is unexpectedly getting a direct sequel as we type.

As much as I love the Morrison DC Universe stuff from when he returned, apart from All Star Superman it's not as essential as his 90s DC work, as it leans heavily on that work. But All-Star Superman is super essential, probably a good place as any to start in terms of reading good comics about DC superheroes.

phansford

I'm not reading comics anymore…… so I can't speak to the newer titles, but I would definitely recommend the following:

TPB's
New Gods (So much of Kirby's Fourth World found its way into the DC Canon)
Batman - Year One, Killing Joke, Death in the Family are great Batman stories.
Jack Kirby's the Losers (Very personal take on WWII by Kirby)
Deadman (there are two volumes that collect Adams/O'Neil run)
Swamp Thing (Find the TPB that collects Alan Moore's start on the character)

Older stuff (single issues/series)
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight
Teen Titans (the Marv Wolfman-George Perez series)

Showcase series
(B/W collections of Silver and Bronze age titles)

Challengers of the Unknown (Kirby)
Enemy Ace
Green Lantern (Gil Kane did most of the early artwork)
Jonah Hex
The Spectre (includes Jim Aparo's run in Adventure Comics)
Batman (Vol 4 and 5 start the Neil Adams stories)
Trial of the Flash…. (Love these stories)

A couple of things to remember. In the 60's, DC was plot-driven and Marvel was character-driven. This would change over time once creators starting moving to DC. Batman and Superman were really more kids oriented and DC was very protective of the two properties. That doesn't mean there are great stories for the characters, but most of it was pretty simple stuff. That is until Neil Adams and Denny O'Neil took over the creative reins on Batman and Detective. Check out their stuff in Deadman

My problem is that I don't really care about all of the multiple DC earths. And I realize that that's a big part of the DC universe. I just don't care, I just like the stories.

I think the best DC stuff is the non-Batman and non-Superman stuff. But I am a huge Batman fan. HaHa. (I really think the golden age of the Modern Batman is the introduction of the first Jason Todd. Batman #357 -#400 (Pre-crisis) and Detective #524- #565. Great art by Gene Colan). But that's just my opinion. HaHa

mrfusion

Thank you both. This is very helpful. Anyone else want to chime in?

Evening639

I was strictly a Spider-Man and X-Men reader in the 90's but became a DC convert in 2000 and the books that accomplished that task were JLA, Green Lantern and Legends Of The Dark Knight. I especially love Mark Waid's run on JLA and Judd Winick's Green Lantern run. Great character development and use of the supporting casts in both.

Chuck_Melville

Anything by John Ostrander, which would include his runs on Suicide Squad, Hawkworld / Hawkman, the Spectre, Martian Manhunter and Firestorm... plus the mini-series JLA: Incarnations. These were the best of the 1990's and early 2000's.

Mark Waid's run on Flash and Impulse from the 90's.

Steve Englehart's run on Justice League of America in the late 70's.

The first couple of years of the revamped post-Crisis Superman by John Byrne, Marv Wolfman and Jerry Ordway. (The next several years' worth is pretty good, too, but you'll want to check out the first couple of years of Action, Superman and Adventures Of Superman before deciding to continue on.)

Green Arrow by Kevin Smith and Phil Hester from the 2000's.

Swamp Thing by Alan Moore... and then the follow-up issues by Rick Veitch.

Phil Foglio's take on Plastic Man (with Hilary Barta and Kevin Nowlan), Angel & The Ape, and Stanley And His Monster.

And Jerry Ordway's brilliant revamp of Captain Marvel in The Power Of Shazam!

WetRats

Chuck_Melville said:

Phil Foglio's take on Plastic Man (with Hilary Barta and Kevin Nowlan), Angel & The Ape, and Stanley And His Monster.

<3 <3 <3

bamfbamf

i'm mainly a Marvel guy as well... but some of my fave DC stuff as follows:

Geoff John's JSA
Start here: http://www.amazon.com/Justice-Be-Done-JSA-Society/dp/1563896206/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436805153&sr=1-1&keywords=justice+be+done

Identity Crisis TPB
http://www.amazon.com/Identity-Crisis-Brad-Meltzer/dp/1401204589/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436805179&sr=1-1&keywords=identity+crisis

Geoff John's Green Lantern rebirth stuff
http://www.amazon.com/Green-Lantern-Rebirth-Geoff-Johns/dp/1401227554/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436805198&sr=1-1&keywords=green+lantern+rebirth+1

Blackest Night
http://www.amazon.com/Blackest-Night-Geoff-Johns/dp/1401229530/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436805214&sr=1-1&keywords=blackest+night

Grant Morrison's JLA
http://www.amazon.com/JLA-Deluxe-Vol-Grant-Morrison/dp/1401233147/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436805291&sr=1-1&keywords=jla+grant+morrison

Peter David's Aquaman
http://www.amazon.com/Aquaman-Time-Tide-Peter-David/dp/1563892596/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1436805232&sr=1-1&keywords=aquaman+peter+david

New 52 Aquaman
http://www.amazon.com/Aquaman-Vol-The-Trench-New/dp/140123710X/ref=pd_cp_14_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1RPEKYARJ13KPKCQ4Y3A

WetRats

Something I haven't seen mentioned yet:

The sort-lived Power Company series.

It was Kurt Busiek's love letter to the DCU in all its continuity-rich grooviness.

It has not, nor likely ever will be collected, but I imagine it can be fairly easily rounded up. Look for the handful of solo one-shots as well.

compsolut

I am still relatively new to the whole medium (only 5 years in) but I started with DC. Here are the things that I have really liked, and got me to dig deeper:

Perhaps one thing that might really appeal to you is the Marvel/DC combined event JLA Avengers. You probably have already read that, but if not, it could introduce a number of DC characters that might pique your interest.

My favorite characters in so specific order are:
Batman
Nightwing/Grayson
Harley Quinn
Green Arrow


TPB
Batman: Long Halloween - great way to get to a number of the classic villains
Kingdom Come - Wasn't a fan at first, but it really grew on me. Waid story and Ross art . . . yeah
Green Lantern: Rebirth - van Sciver art and quite possible one of Johns best runs

Issues
Legends of the Dark Knight - usually in the 50 cent bins, and is a series that showcases many different writers and artists doing individual arcs with Bats
Batman Beyond - Just a fun connection to my childhood cartoons :)
Blackest Night - Enjoyed the tone

hauberk

WetRats said:

Something I haven't seen mentioned yet:

The sort-lived Power Company series.

It was Kurt Busiek's love letter to the DCU in all its continuity-rich grooviness.

It has not, nor likely ever will be collected, but I imagine it can be fairly easily rounded up. Look for the handful of solo one-shots as well.

I picked up the first 10 issues plus the one-shots for about $3 recently. Pretty enjoyable.

mrfusion

Ok, DC n00b question here. I'm reading an issue of Batman (358), at the end it says the story continues in Detective (525). The end of that Detective issue it says the story continues back in Batman (359). Its done this back and forth stuff for a bunch of issues now. What's the deal with this? Does it do this all the time? Do you really have to follow both books to get one story? Why do they do that?

phansford

I am assuming that both issues are dated April 1983 feature Killer Croc. If that is the case, then yes that was the norm at the time. BTW - Great story.

Chuck_Melville

mrfusion said:

Ok, DC n00b question here. I'm reading an issue of Batman (358), at the end it says the story continues in Detective (525). The end of that Detective issue it says the story continues back in Batman (359). Its done this back and forth stuff for a bunch of issues now. What's the deal with this? Does it do this all the time? Do you really have to follow both books to get one story? Why do they do that?

Yeah, at that time that was the case. As I recall, it wasn't an ongoing thing, but they did do it fairly regularly. Why? Two reasons: 1) most fans liked a steady continuity among the Batman titles, and 2) it helped boost circulation by bringing readers from one title to the other. Not every fan liked this of course and it was hell for the casual reader, but it was rewarding for those of us who did buy both books on a regular basis.

The Superman titles of the late 80's and 90's did the same thing, much more strongly so, to the point where it was like getting a weekly comic; I consider that to have been among the strongest points of that particular run.

mrfusion

I see that they were both for the same month, so I *guess* if they had a big story to tell, they didn't want to drag it out too long. Thank you all so much for helping me get into the DCU. There's so much here and it really feels different from Marvel.

phansford

That run of Batman and Detective that starts in April 1983 thru to Crisis is my favorite of all-time. (As I stated above). Great stories with great villains. Bullock gets introduced. Killer Croc. Black Mask. I was in grad school at the time. Batman, Detective, and Teen Titans were by far the best books going. There is also a nice Noir crime mini-series penciled by Gene Colan (no inks) that is pretty cool. Nathan Dusk. Nothing like seeing Gene Colan's pencils in their pure form.

WetRats

Chuck_Melville said:

mrfusion said:

Ok, DC n00b question here. I'm reading an issue of Batman (358), at the end it says the story continues in Detective (525). The end of that Detective issue it says the story continues back in Batman (359). Its done this back and forth stuff for a bunch of issues now. What's the deal with this? Does it do this all the time? Do you really have to follow both books to get one story? Why do they do that?

Yeah, at that time that was the case. As I recall, it wasn't an ongoing thing, but they did do it fairly regularly. Why? Two reasons: 1) most fans liked a steady continuity among the Batman titles, and 2) it helped boost circulation by bringing readers from one title to the other. Not every fan liked this of course and it was hell for the casual reader, but it was rewarding for those of us who did buy both books on a regular basis.

The Superman titles of the late 80's and 90's did the same thing, much more strongly so, to the point where it was like getting a weekly comic; I consider that to have been among the strongest points of that particular run.

It was one of those periods when strong continuity and strong editorial control were ascendant.

It was nice for a while.