DC Universe Reading Projects

A DCU Reading Project is as follows: a large (or very large) volume of content from the Comics section that catches your attention, makes you sit back and think to yourself “Self, I’m going to read (or re-read) ALL of that! It’ll take time, but I’m going to commit to the WHOLE crispety, crunchety comic book buffet before me.”

Maybe your Reading Project is the entirety of a long running ongoing series, a particular creator’s output that spans years, an event that spanned a large number of books or a particular era in full.

I recently finished everything from 2001’s Our Worlds at War event and I’m now embarking upon a complete re-read of everything from 2015’s Convergence event.

How’s 'bout you? Do you have a DCU Reading Project?

SN: If you’ve a Reading Project that consists of DC material that isn’t on DCU, you’re more than welcome to mention that too.

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I’m using “Reading Project” for long catch ups from now on!

Currently re-reading the entirety of the Infinite Crisis run and tie ins. Because I can!

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John Byrne’s entire Superman run starting with 1986’s Man of Steel. Have all 10 volume’s purchased on Comixology. Just need to find the time to read them.

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Good picks kids!

Vroom, thAmos for adding project to the lexicon
Long running project Action and Detective from #1 on. About 50 into both, sometimes only getting a couple in a week but going till I’ve hit them all.
Smaller project, Smallville about 75% thru

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I intend to read every available “maxiseries” that is directly focused on the post-Zero-Hour Legion of Superheroes.

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My reading project is to read the Birds of Prey, all of it, already finished all the preceding series like the wonderful 1989 Huntress series.

My reading current reading project for right now:

Re-reading Geoff Johns Aquaman run, then gonna read Matt Fractions Hawkeye, and then Planetary by Jeff Lemire.

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@MajorZuma Do you mean Animal Man by Jeff Lemire (or Sweet Tooth, among other titles of his)?

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@Vroom I meant Warren Ellis’s Planetary, I got Lemire and Ellis mixed up for some reason.

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@MajorZuma That’s easy to do as Ellis and Lemire are wonderful talents that have written some kick ass books.

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I have several projects going on right now. I’m reading the entire run of Starman. Batman starting at the new 52, and Superman beginning at rebirth.

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@Vroom I agree Im a fan of both. Im excited to read Planetary, Ive heard a lot of good things.

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@Xbones those are all excellent choices, I hope you enjoy those titles as much as I did when I read them.

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I’m currently working on Allen Moore’s Saga of the Swamp Thing.

After that I’m seriously wanting to tackle the 3 main crisis stories.

Crisis on Infinite Earth’s
Infinite Crisis
Final Crisis

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Moore’s Swamp Thing is the one I keep saying “It’s up next!” for, but then it keeps getting put on the backburner.

Maybe next time…

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I am VERY SLOWLY crawling my way through the Post-Crisis timeline, reading no more than twelve titles month-by-month (and skipping over things I’ve already read). I’m about to start November 1989.

Current lineup (in order of first issue’s release, which is also the order in which I’m rotating through them):
Detective Comics (Not all that great. I’m really not a fan of Mike W. Barr or Alan Grant’s writing.)
Batman (Pretty decent, but with some stinkers. A Death in the Family is the worst single story I’ve encountered so far, but the rest has been good.)
The New Titans (Varies in quality, but generally past its prime. Every story takes far too long to resolve, and it was never quite the same after George Perez left the first time.)
Wonder Woman (Awesome. George Perez’s writing and art are top-notch.)
The Question (Awesome. Can get a little soapboxy, but if anybody’s going to get up on a soapbox, at least Denny O’Neil does it stylishly.)
Captain Atom (Awesome. Plays with typical superhero tropes but doesn’t seem to be coming from a place of animus like a typical deconstruction, but rather just trying to do something interesting. Just a very clever series.)
Justice League International/America (Really funny. Turning the Justice League into a comedy was a legitimately genius idea.)
Suicide Squad (Pretty good. It doesn’t quite wow me as much as Wonder Woman, The Question, or Captain Atom, but it’s still a cool, well-written series. Also, it appeals to my Oracle-fanboy-ness.)
The Flash (Kind of really bad, honestly. I’m tempted to just drop it and pick it back up when I catch up to where I was in Mark Waid’s run, but it’s sort of an escalation-of-commitment thing at this point. Mike Baron’s run was mediocre but acceptable, but William Messner-Loebs’ run is unimaginably boring.)
Justice League Europe (Maybe actually funnier than Justice League America. I don’t laugh at things I’m reading all that often, but the first issue had me cracking up.)
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (I’ve only just started the month when the first issue was published, so I haven’t actually read any of it yet. That said, I see the name “O’Neil” on the cover of the first issue, so I’m optimistic about the quality.)

My last project was going through '90s and '00s Bat-Books, reading all the crossovers and whatever ongoings happened to catch my attention from month to month. This is sort of following up on that, but starting earlier and working on a larger scale. For the series I’m interested in, I’m going to try to read every issue, even the bad runs, whereas during this first project, I would only read a run if I knew the writer was good (though I did stick through Nightwing and Birds of Prey for the whole run of each).

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Green Lantern (1960) run. Been leaving a little review / write-up every 10 issues. Although, there is a very big gap around between 100 and 170 or so…I won’t skip an issue. The project might come to a screeching halt once I get up around 100. (Where are those books DC???)

Oh, I’ve also been trying to catch all the crossover events:
-Crisis on Infinite Earths is still the best comic I’ve ever read.
-Legends is a bit repetitive at points, but a pretty good read.
-Millennium is not on DCU.
-Invasion! is alright, but I feel like it didn’t really warrant eighty pages per issue. Forty would’ve been sufficient.
-The Janus Directive has some silly moments, I find the Force of July really annoying, and Kobra has always been a bunch of second-rate HYDRA knockoffs, but the story managed to be reasonably entertaining. That said, it reads like they came up with the mystery, and then later had to think of a solution that would explain everything that was happening, making Kobra’s plan seem unnecessarily complex and Waller’s response to it seem oddly passive.
-A Lonely Place of Dying is pretty cool. I like it, but I don’t really have much to say about it.

I’m slowly making my way through Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing run (which, on a totally non-DC note, inspired me to go back and finally finish the 80s/90s Miracleman series) and will be starting a read-every-Legion-of-Super-Heroes-thing project in anticipation of the upcoming return. Have always been a big Legion fan but only bounced between the different series over the years and never got totally into any in particular. DCU is helping me fix that!

I’m also trying to get through Neil Gaiman’s Sandman (sadly not on here) and the Rebirth runs of Flash and Batman. When I get some extra time, I’d like to read through the entire Geoff Johns Green Lantern run (and his Superman run), the Convergence books, and probably a million other things!