Skip to content

X-Men Omnibus Reading Order!

  • by

From their first appearance in September 1963 to the present, The X-Men have lived countless adventures filled with action, tragedy, comedy, romance, and more. These adventures have spawned many teams such as New Mutants, X-Factor, Excalibur, and X-Force, as well as solo journeys for many characters in the form of miniseries and ongoing titles!

Naturally, the library of X-Men and X-Men-related comic book titles can look daunting for new readers and even older ones. Throughout the years, Marvel Comics has collected many runs and tens of thousands of X-Men issues in various formats, including classic trade paperbacks, Marvel Masterworks, in the popular Epic Collection, and, of course, the Omnibus line!

With more than 50 omnibuses dedicated to the X-Men and all associated titles—and the number is still growing—, we have decided to create a Specific X-Men Omnibus Reading Order. This guide can serve as a roadmap to the extraordinary adventures of the X-Men in this particular collection, helping new and old readers to find their ways in the vast world of the mutantkind!

Read More »X-Men Omnibus Reading Order!

What is the Speed Force? Understanding the Origins of The Flash’s Powers

  • by

It’s no secret that The Flash is the fastest man alive! But how can he be capable of such an amazing prowess? The Flash’s speed is derived from the Speed Force, which is defines as ‘a strange other-dimensional energy field that gives all speedsters their power‘ and ‘a mysterious ancient power that caused the extinction of the Mayans and sped up the evolution of a tribe of gorillas in East Africa‘ (DC Encyclopedia, 2021.) 

Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo created the Speed Force 30 years ago, in The Flash (Vol. 2) #91, after speedster Wally West attempted to travel faster using Johnny Quick’s super speed formula and began going so fast that he stopped time. At this moment, Wally’s mentor and Golden Age Speedster, Max Mercury, informs him of his link to the Speed Force. For Wally West, it was some « Zen Mumbo Jumbo », unaware that the Flash Mythology had just been drastically transformed.

Read More »What is the Speed Force? Understanding the Origins of The Flash’s Powers

Lady Death Reading Order

  • by

At the start of the 1990s emerged a new popular trend in the comic book world, the Bad Girls comics. Violent scantily clad busty women of supernatural/occult origins who quickly found an audience in this bubbling market. Vampirella was making a comeback, but soon also came Neil Gaiman’s Angela, Rob Liefeld’s Avengelyne, Billy Tucci’s Shi, Marc Silvestri’s Witchblade, but before them, there was Lady Death.

Introduced in 1991 by writer Brian Pulido and artist Steven Hughes in Evil Ernie #1 published by Chaos! Comics, Lady Death was originally a hallucination. Ernest “Ernie” Fairchild thought that she was his dream girl and she would love him if he killed everything on Earth. Evil Ernie was deranged, to say the least. Nevertheless, Lady Death caught on and moved to become something else.

In her own series, Lady Death was introduce as Hope, a young Swedish medieval girl whose power-mad father tries to gain enough strength to challenge the lord of hell so he can become its ruler. As she tried to save herself, Hope ended up in Hell fighting Lucifer. She cast him through Heaven’s Gate and took his place as the ruler of Hell–but he cursed her, she can never return to the mortal plane so long as the living walk the Earth.

As the 1990s progressed, Lady Death found her way into more Chaos! Comics series and additional miniseries. But once Chaos! Comics filed for bankruptcy, the character rights were sold and Lady Death entered the CrossGen universe–but not all the Chaos characters followed her. Brian Pulido continued to work on Lady Death with the (family-friendly) series Medieval Lady Death, but CrossGen Entertainment followed the same road as Chaos! Comics. Lady Death was this time sold to Avatar Press where Pulido worked on two series, Medieval Lady Death as well as the Classic Lady Death. 

Since then Lady Death moved to a new imprint at Avatar Press (Boundless Comics) before jumping to Coffin Comics, Brian Pulido’s own publishing company.

Read More »Lady Death Reading Order

Alpha Flight Reading Order, Canada’s premier team of superheroes

  • by

A lot of Marvel’s superheroes are based in New York, but you can’t find more all around the world, including Canada! That’s where you’ll meet the members of Alpha Flight, a team often described as the Canadian’s Avengers.

From time to time, Wolverine’s back story was evoked and, in The Uncanny X-Men #120-121 by John Byrne, a new element was introduced, the Alpha Flight team. Their first on-page action was to try to abduct Wolverine to get him back to his home country as the Canadian government had invested in his training and wanted to have him rejoin his original team.

That’s how James MacDonald Hudson (Vindicator, later Guardian), Jean-Paul Beaubier (Northstar), Jeanne-Marie Beaubier (Aurora), Corporal Anne McKenzie (Snowbird),  Walter Langowski (Sasquatch), and Michael Twoyoungmen (Shaman) were first introduced to the readers.

John Byrne thought this was a one-off, but Canadian readers and X-Men fans alike loved the concept, and the Alpha Flight team quickly got its own ongoing series that ran from 1983 to 1994. Throughout the year, the team evolved by adding new characters.

After the first volume concluded, the series would come back multiple times and, to this day, is still active.

Read More »Alpha Flight Reading Order, Canada’s premier team of superheroes

Who is Ra’s al Ghul, Batman’s Nemesis?

  • by

The Joker may be considered by most as the ultimate enemy of Batman, but he certainly is not the only deadly threat in the Dark Knight’s rogues gallery. One that also stands apart among other DC Comics supervillains is Ra’s al Ghul.

Ra’s al Ghul’s First Apparition

Created by writer Dennis O’Neil and artist Neal Adams in the story “Daughter of the Demon” (Batman #232, 1971), Ra’s al Ghul was named by DC editor Julius Schwartz–in Arabic, the name means “the Head of the Demon.” If we are to believe Talia al Ghul, Ra’s chose this name himself, it was not given to him.

Ra’s al Ghul first entered Batman’s world after his daughter Talia, whom Batman had recently rescued from the League of Assassins, was kidnapped. He appeared suddenly in the Batcave to reveal to the Detective that the people responsible are the same as the ones who just took Robin (Dick Grayson). Once the shock passes, the two team up to go on a series of adventures, following the criminal to the other side of the world.

Read More »Who is Ra’s al Ghul, Batman’s Nemesis?

Cyborg Superman Reading Order (Hank Henshaw)

Since his creation, Superman has inspired many other characters including different versions of himself such as Bizarro, the “mirror image” of The Man of Steel. Among the alternative versions of the superhero is also Cyborg Superman, a character whose origin story is more of a dark homage to what happened to the Fantastic Four.

Created by Dan Jurgens, Hank Henshaw made his first appearance in The Adventures of Superman #465 (May 1990). The astronaut was on the LexCorp space shuttle Excalibur with his wife Terri and two other crew members when it crashed, supposedly at first from a solar flare created by Superman which also exposed the crew to a fatal dose of radiation. As Hank’s body deteriorated, he transferred his consciousness to LexCorp’s mainframe and transformed into a cyborg resembling Superman. His wife didn’t survive the whole ordeal and with time, Hank became delusional and paranoid, blaming Superman for Terri’s death — even though she herself established what happened was simply an accident.

From the rubble of this freakish accident was born Cyborg Superman, also called The Cyborg (not to be confused with Cyborg!). With the ability to control machines and computers, as well as physical strength similar to Superman’s, Cyborg Superman became one of the Man of Steel’s dangerous foes and a Green Lantern villain.

Now, learn more about Cyborg Superman with our reading order, guiding you through the essential comics and story arcs featuring DC Comics’s evil twisted version of Superman!

Read More »Cyborg Superman Reading Order (Hank Henshaw)

Fullmetal Alchemist, a Classic Fantasy Manga

With a total of 108 chapters, Fullmetal Alchemist chronicles over nine years the epic, fun, and dangerous journey of the famous Elric Brothers.

Their story began in Japan in 2001 in Square Enix’s Monthly Shōnen Gangan. Readers were introduced to Edward and Alphonse Elric, two brothers living in a 20th-century-inspired world where alchemy is one of the most practiced sciences. Following a forbidden alchemical ritual gone wrong, Edward Elric lost his right arm and left leg while his younger brother Alphonse lost his entire physical body and now exists as a soul alchemically bound to a large suit of steel armor.

In a quest to restore their bodies (especially for his brother), Ed joined the military and became a State Alchemist. His research led him to search for the Philosopher’s Stone, a mystical object that could help him attain his goal. But now, war is on the horizon and the two brothers have no choice but to face the moral complexities of their actions, the harsh realities of war, and human suffering, as well as to deal with powerful and menacing adversaries with their own ambitions.

Read More »Fullmetal Alchemist, a Classic Fantasy Manga

Who is Red She-Hulk? The Origin Story of Marvel’s Red Monstress

  • by

The Hulk Family Tree has expanded as more people got poisoned by Gamma radiation. The Marvel Universe is full of monsters, but all are certainly not green ones. Since the first incarnation of Red Hulk (also known as Rulk) first appeared in 2008, we know they also can be red ones.

Announced in a shroud of mystery during the 2009 Comic Con, Red She-Hulk followed Red Hulk’s path as his real identity was hidden for some time (nearly two years). Once again, Marvel threw a few “red” herrings on the readers’ path with clues leading to Domino of X-Force and Elektra. So, at the beginning, there only was the character design:

What [Jeph] Loeb did reveal was the process by which the character was created by [Ed] McGuinness and “Code Red” arc artist Ian Churchill. “Ed did the design, but Ian certainly made it his own. The two of them sent stuff back and forth until everyone was happy. Ed’s big contribution to it was that he wanted this big, long, flowing mane of hair that was black and had a red streak in it -sort of like the Bride of Frankenstein. It makes her look super cool. We worked a long time on what it is that she wears because we didn’t want her to be wearing what Jen wears, and we didn’t want her to be wearing a white torn shirt. What she has on is very specific.” —Introducing… Red She-Hulk (CBR.com)

Read More »Who is Red She-Hulk? The Origin Story of Marvel’s Red Monstress

Lobo Reading Order (DC Comics)

  • by

When he was first introduced by Roger Slifer and Keith Giffen in Omega Men #3 (1983), Lobo was a villain from planet Velorpian, the last of his race, who partnered with Bedlam. You can forget about that. This was not DC Comics’ Main Man, the Lobo who gained fame during the 1990s.

Reintroduced by Giffen in Justice League International, then in L.E.G.I.O.N. (and R.E.B.E.L.S.), before getting his own miniseries famously written by Alan Grant (plotted by Giffen) and with art by Simon Bisley that retconned his origins, Lobo is an interstellar mercenary and bounty hunter from the utopian planet of Czarnia. He is brash, indestructible, and likes being violent.

Drenched in black humor, Lobo was deliberately outrageous as he was used to parody the violent excesses of the time. As Giffen said it, “I have no idea why Lobo took off.  I came up with him as an indictment of the Punisher, Wolverine, badass hero prototype and somehow he caught on as the high-violence poster boy. Go figure.”

As a product of the 1990s, Lobo appeared less often during the following decades, but he still came by from time to time to collect a bounty and be chaotic.

Read More »Lobo Reading Order (DC Comics)

The Sixth Gun Reading Order (and Shadow Roads)

  • by

The Sixth Gun is a comic book series created by Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt that was published by Oni Press. The story is set in the Old West, shortly after the end of the Civil War. It’s a Western with fantasy elements (or sci-fi, I’m not quite sure how to define it).

The story of The Sixth Gun takes place in the Old West during the late 1880s and centers around a set of six magic pistols connected to each other by dark powers. They will be used to rewrite the World. Each one of the six guns is bound to the man who used it until his death.

The Sixth one ends up in the hand of Becky Montcrief and now people want to kill her in order to take it back. With the help of the mysterious Drake Sinclair, Becky goes hunting for the other guns, and she’s not the only one. During their quest, they must fight against General Hume and his four horsemen, the Knights of Solomon, the Sword of Abraham, and the Grey Witch.

The main Sixth Gun series is composed of 50 issues. During its original run, the publication of the series was punctuated by multiple spin-off miniseries. Once the main story was concluded, a new ongoing spin-off series titled Shadow Roads was launched.

Read More »The Sixth Gun Reading Order (and Shadow Roads)