After New Mutants and X-Force, Generation X is another Marvel Comics series set in the X-Men Universe. Created by Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachalo, the Generation X team first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #318 (November 1994) during the “Phalanx Covenant” storyline and immediately got its own monthly series.
Generation X is the first team of X-Men not mentored by Charles Xavier, but by Banshee and former supervillainess Emma Frost (aka the White Queen). In fact, these young mutants did not attend Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters in upstate New York, but the Massachusetts Academy, located in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
During the first volume, Generation X consisted of Jubilee (Jubilation Lee), Chamber (Jonothon “Jono” Starsmore), Husk (Paige Guthrie), M (Monet St. Croix), Mondo, Penance, Skin (Angelo Espinosa), Synch (Everett Thomas), and Gaia.
Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, Captain America was introduced in March 1941 to fight the AXIS powers during WWII. He was the most popular character from Timely Comics (a predecessor of Marvel Comics) during the wartime period before fading into obscurity with falling sales in the 1950s.
If several heroes bearing the flag motif didn’t survive and are forgotten today, the man known as Steve Rogers found his way back to the public when The Avengers got him out of ice in 1964. He became a man out of time but one still committed to fighting evil in all its forms. Though he sometimes struggles to maintain his ideals, Cap never gives up and always stands up for what he believes is right. It’s no wonder he became a highly respected figure both with the American public and in the superhero community, serving as the long-time leader of the Avengers.
More than a man, Captain America is an American icon, a symbol of hope. For this reason, other men have taken the mantle of Captain America in Steve Rogers’ various absences, including John Walker, Bucky Barnes, and Sam Wilson.
They are the next generation of superheroes and want to have their own adventures, far away from their mentor. They are the Young Justice! The team was founded by Robin (Tim Drake), Superboy (Kon-El), and Impulse (Bart Allen) but will soon become a beacon for the young superheroes in the DC Universe.
Created by Todd Dezago and artist Todd Nauck, the Young Justice made its first appearance in 1998, in Young Justice: Secret #1 at a time when the Teen Titans had become the Titans and they were no current superheroes’ teen team.
The team’s base was established in the empty JLA headquarters in Happy Harbor, Rhode Island, where they met Red Tornado. The sentient android stayed with the team as an adult supervisor and adviser. Soon enough, some new members were added to the team: Wonder Girl (Cassandra “Cassie” Sandsmark), Arrowette (Cissie King-Jones), and Secret (Greta Hayes). Other heroes would come and go from the team: Empress, Li’l Lobo/Slobo, The Ray, but also Teen Lantern, Jinny Hex, and Amethyst. Red Tornado was also eventually replaced with civilian Snapper Carr.
If Young Justice was created on paper, the team made also a name for itself on television, thanks to the Young Justice animated television series, launched in 2010 on Cartoon Network. It is not an adaptation of the comic book series (and not in continuity), but the adventures of another version of the team from another Earth. And there are tie-ins to the television adventures!
To know more about the Young Justice, let’s dive into this reading order!
Originally introduced in 1967 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby under the name “Him” in Fantastic Four #66-67, Adam Warlock really started in Marvel Premiere #1 (April 1972) written by Roy Thomas and penciled by Gil Kane.
Adam Warlock is a synthetic lifeform created in the image of a perfect human being. He is one of the most powerful heroes of the entire cosmos–and possessed magical abilities and has to use them to fight The Magus, his malevolent future self.
At the start, a coalition of scientists known as The Enclave incubated Warlock in an artificial cocoon. Once out, he rebelled against his creators after realizing they were nefarious. When he re-emerged, years later, he was named “Warlock” by the High Evolutionary and was gifted the Soul Gem. He didn’t become a hero on Earth, but on Counter-Earth–a new planet generated from a chunk of Earth and set in orbit on the opposite side of the sun.
A few years later, Jim Starlin revived the character and made him more of a cosmic hero, twice. The first time, it only lasted for a few issues, but he brought Adam Warlock back for his Infinity Saga eleven years later–during the 1990s.
During the 2000s, when Marvel decided to revive its cosmic universe, Warlock made his comeback, playing his part in the Annihilation Saga.
For decades now, every DC Comics reader has been dealing with continuity issues. Some see that as a problem and, in order to fix it, multiple reboots/relaunches were introduced, installing a new status-quos, and launching new “eras.” All that with the use of what are called “Crisis” events.
The original “Crisis” took place in Justice League of America #21, titled “Crisis On Earth-One!” The story introduced the idea of two different realities, explaining how the heroes of the Justice League teamed up with their predecessors from the Justice Society of America. This led to multiple crossovers between Earth-One and Earth-Two.
But what cemented “Crisis” as a synonym for “universe-altering event” was the 1985 Crisis on Infinite Earths, the famous crossover storyline from Marv Wolfman and George Pérez. This 12-issue limited series is now credited with popularizing the idea of a large-scale crossover in comics. At the time, the goal was to create a single and unified DC Universe.
Crisis on Infinite Earths was used to launch what is now called the Modern-Age era. It became–and still is for a lot of readers–a good entry point into the DCU. The event didn’t fix everything and other Crisis events try to do more. The DCU was just destined to become a confusing affair once more.
Nevertheless, reading from Crisis to Crisis is not a simple task as the series are numerous, as well as the crossovers. If you want to explore this rich story, the task is overwhelming. There are a lot of roads to follow, but you may only want the short version–or at least, the essential reading recommendation.
This reading guide is here to offer one possible road to follow. It’s not definitive, feel free to submit more books to read in the comment section (and tell us why they are a must-read!).
After almost five years, the New 52 era came to an end to make way for a new era, a new beginning: Rebirth! It had, from a continuity point of view, minimal impact on the Green Lanterns, as their story simply continues from the previous era.
From a more behind-the-scene angle, new creative teams worked on the title. Or titles should I write, as the main Green Lantern series was replaced by two books. Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz headlined Green Lanterns, written by Sam Humphries for its first 32 issues and for the most part penciled by Robson Rocha. Humphries was followed by Tim Seeley (#33-47), Aaron Gillespie (#48-49), and Dan Jurgens (#50-57) with art from Ronan Cliquet, Carlo Barberi, V. Ken Marion, Mike Perkins and Marco Santucci. Our two Green Lanterns were also members of the Justice League during this period. At the same time, Hal Jordan was still flying with writer Robert Venditti and artist Rafa Sandoval in Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps.
Things changed not long after Dark Nights: Metal. Grant Morrison took over and teamed up with British comic book artist Liam Sharp for a run on Green Lantern. There was also some shake-up in the Justice League, following the No Justice arc, with the creation of different teams. Simon Baz stayed with the classic Justice League, but Jessica Crews joined the Justice League Odyssey, a team formed to bring order to the newly created space sector known as the Ghost Sector. And a little bit later, a new Green Lantern was introduced…
Few characters at Marvel have a backstory as complicated as Cable (with the exception of Psylocke). Born Nathan Christopher Charles Summers, Cable is the time-traveling son of Scott Summers (Cyclops) and Madelyn Pryor (Jean Grey’s clone). Behind his conception lurks the crazy geneticist Mr. Sinister who planned to use the child as a weapon to destroy his archenemy Apocalypse.
As an infant, Nathan was infected by a deadly techno-organic virus incurable in the present. To save him, Cyclops gave Nathan ups, sending him 2000 years into the future (Earth-493) where he could be treated and grow up. There was just no hope for Scott to ever see his son again, or so he thought.
In this future world, Nathan was raised by the Askani Clan to become the warrior Cable, an enemy of Apocalypse. The religious order was led by Mother Askani, who is a time-displaced version of Rachel Summers, Cable’s half-sister.
To defeat Apocalypse once and for all, Cable came back to the present day at least one decade before he was born. He became one of the founding members and leader of X-Force where he took young mutants under his wing and prepare them for future threats with a more aggressive approach compared to the X-Men.
Throughout the years, Cable formed the most improbable odd couple of Marvel with Deadpool, developed a complicated relationship with his alternate universe half-brother/counterpart Nate Grey, adopted and raised the first post-Decimation mutant named Hope, joined the Avengers Unity Division, and more, much more.
As if it wasn’t complicated enough, he was recently killed and replaced by a younger, time-displaced version of himself (often called Kid Cable) before being revived.
It’s no surprise then that when Cable popped up in Deadpool 2 (2008), where he was portrayed by Josh Brolin, his backstory was mostly ignored. It’s the kind of story you need a whole movie to do it justice or you know, a lot of comic books!
Jack Burton is not your ordinary hero simply because… he is not the hero! Jack Burton is the iconic sidekick who thinks he is the leading man. And it gave us the cult classic Big Trouble in Little China directed by John Carpenter, and starring Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall, Dennis Dun, and James Hong.
Even if Jack Burton was born ready, it has to be said that the amazing and hilarious adventure he had was almost impossible to predict. A wise-cracking truck driver, Jack Burton finds himself involved in an ancient battle between Good and Evil when the fiancée of his friend Wang Chi is kidnapped and must be rescued from bandits in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Despite a lack of success at the box office at the time of its release, the movie became a fan-favorite. So much that almost 30 years after, Boom Studios! continued Jack’s journey through multiple ongoing stories.
It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman! Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in Action Comics #1 (1938), Superman is an alien from the planet Krypton who fights crime in Metropolis and the rest of the world. Under the costume is Kal-El, who was sent to Earth when he was a baby, and adopted by farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent who named him Clark Kent and raised him in the little town of Smallville. As Clark developed superhuman abilities, his parents taught him to use his talents to help humanity.
Clark relocated to Metropolis to pursue a career in journalism. He landed a job at the Daily Planet, where he met the love of his life and journalist Lois Lane, photographer Jimmy Olsen, and editor-in-chief Perry White. In parallel, he put on a colorful costume and used the codename Superman to fight powerful enemies, including General Zod, Brainiac, and the most emblematic of them all, the narcissistic-genius Lex Luthor.
The superhero genre wouldn’t be the same without Superman. Though there was other before him that could be said to fit the bill, he established the conventions and popularized the whole genre, being the best-selling superhero in American comic books up until the 1980s.
As the DC Universe was becoming more complicated and sales were declining, a new page of history was written following a Crisis like no one else: Crisis on Infinite Earths (see reading order). This was the beginning of the Modern Age and the creation of new instant-classic stories. The event was used to retconned the histories of most of the characters. The idea was to clean up the timelines (something DC is still trying to do, in vain) and to update the superheroes in order to appeal to a contemporary audience.
This is when this Superman reading order begins. This article doesn’t cover the previous decades (or the Pre-Crisis). Our Man of Steel got a new origin story with the help of John Byrne, and it would only be the first of several ones during this long period. Kal-El’s past was explored, revisited, and modified, as the character lived some bold adventures, even making headlines for dying (something so ordinary today… to die in the comics, not the mainstream media coverage).
First appearing in Marvel Super-Heroes #18 (Jan. 1969), the Guardians of the Galaxy is a superhero team that originated from an idea Roy Thomas had about “super-guerrillas fighting against Russians and Red Chinese who had taken over and divided the USA.” Thomas didn’t have the time to research it so Stan Lee gave it to Arnold Drake. He took it and placed it in space.
Penciled by Gene Colan, the first story introduced us to an alternative timeline of the Marvel Universe known as Earth-691, in the 31st century. The members of the Guardians of the Galaxy were Major Vance Astro, an astronaut from 20th century Earth who spends a thousand years traveling to Alpha Centauri in suspended animation; Martinex T’Naga, a crystalline being from Pluto; Captain Charlie-27, a soldier from Jupiter; and Yondu Udonta, a blue-skinned “noble savage” from Centauri-IV.
Together, they fight against the Badoon, a reptilian alien species, determined to conquer Earth’s Solar System. The team grew as the fight went on. And when the Guardians defeated the Badoon, the evil Korvac became their main foe. They traveled in time, developed into a multiple-team organization, and simply continued to fight… up until Guardians of the Galaxy #62 (July 1995).
In May 2008, Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning introduced a new version of the Guardians of the Galaxy following the Annihilation: Conquest event–the old team appeared as guest stars during the series and got a new title, Guardians 3000.
The new roster united Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Phyla-Vell, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, and Adam Warlock. Together, they play an important part in the Annihilation storylines that relaunched the Cosmic Universe of Marvel.
With the movie coming out, the team was pushed to the front, and, in 2012 with the launch of the Marvel NOW! initiative, Brian Michael Bendis became the main writer of the series (drawn by Steve McNiven). New members joined, spin-offs were developed, and guest appearances in other titles multiplied. The Guardians of the Galaxy became big players in the Marvel Universe.
