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Where to start reading Deadpool comics? A Guide for beginners

This summer, Deadpool is breaking the Fourth Wall on the big screen once again… This time with Wolverine! Before watching Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), why not read some good comics featuring Wade Wilson?

Born in Canada, Deadpool is known as the Merc With a Mouth. He’s a wise-cracking, insufferable lethal mercenary who just can’t shut up! Is he mad or a genius? A hero who commits regular felonies or a villain doing occasional good deeds?

Learn more about Marvel’s famous mercenary, The Man, The Myth, The Legend with our recommended reading list!

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Batman ’66 Reading Order

In January 1966, the American TV Network ABC launched a live-action Batman show starring Adam West as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Burt Ward as Dick Grayson/Robin. It soon became a massive hit which had a big impact on pop culture, influencing other TV Shows but also the comic book it was based on.

It was created by William Dozier, a man who, before starting work on the project, had never read a Batman comic in his life. Not knowing how to adapt the character, he tried multiple approaches and the one that worked was to make Batman a pop-art campy comedy. For the kids, it was a colorful action/adventure series. For the adults, it was a fun time.

This Batman show lasted for three seasons and a movie as ABC decided to milk this success to the max, ordering 60 episodes for the second season, emptying at a fast rate its creative juice. The public grew tired of Batman and Dozier tried to save the series by introducing Batgirl/Barbara Gordon (played by Yvonne Craig) and asking DC Comics to develop the character in the Batman comics. This was not enough to make the ratings go up–Dozier also flirted with surrealism at one point and tried to be more topical.

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The Best of Magik Comics, Our Illyana Rasputin Recommended Reading Order (X-Men)!

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While it’s obvious to think about Scarlet Witch or Clea and Stephen Strange when talking about magic users in the Marvel Universe, it would be a great mistake to disregard Magik, also known as Illyana Rasputina.

Created by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum, Illyana made her first appearance in the comic book Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May 1975), like many other X-Men characters such as Nightcrawler, Storm, Thunderbird, and her brother Colossus! For a long time, she was only known as Colossus’ little sister until Chris Claremont and Sal Buscema sent her to the magical realm of Limbo. In her time there, Illyana aged seven years,  developed her teleportation abilities and became a sorceress later known as Magik.

Since her debut, Illyana has been abused by demons during her formative years, de-aged, exploited by her government, killed by a Virus, resurrected, turned on the Dark Side and more! With those many traumatic experiences, Magik became one of the most fascinating and ambiguous X-Men and well deserving of her own reading order! 

So today, let’s explore Magik’s history with her best comics to understand her character and motivations, learn more about her place among the X-Men, her relationship with her brother, Shadowcat and more!

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The History and Legacy of Crisis on Infinite Earths

Imagine the whole universe is in peril. I mean Universes! An unprecedented menace is coming, worlds are being annihilated, and nothing and nobody can’t stop it, except maybe if all the superheroes and supervillains unite. No, it’s not the pitch for next week’s major comics crossover event at Marvel or DC, because it’s 1985 and nothing as ambitious and of that scale has ever happened before.

It was Crisis on Infinite Earths, the story that changed the DC Universe and the American comic book industry forever.

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Berserk Manga Order

Berserk is undoubtedly one of the most popular manga series in the United States. When the manga returned in 2023 with a new volume, it topped the charts, outselling One Piece and Demon Slayer in the process. It is also an influential work that affected not just many mangakas but also the worlds of games, film, animation, and literature. 

Written and illustrated by Kentaro Miura (1966-2021), Berserk is a Dark Fantasy manga set in a medieval-Europe-inspired world. The story follows Guts, a lone swordsman, on his quest for vengeance against Griffith, the leader of a mercenary band that betrayed him. Starting in 1989, Berserk was published in the manga magazine Monthly Animal House, which was replaced in 1992 by the semimonthly magazine Young Animal.

Berserk was a life’s work for Miura, who died from acute aortic dissection in May 2021. Manga artist Kouji Mori, the only person who knows how Miura intended to finish Berserk, has agreed to continue the manga and see it through to the end using plans and thoughts relayed to Mori by Miura himself, as well as memorandums and character designs that Miura left behind.

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Venom War Reading Order

As summer comes, Marvel Comics delivers a new Symbiotes event–one year after the Summer of Symbiotes. It’s time for the Venom War event from writer Al Ewing and artist Iban Coello. This time, it’s a family affair:

“The Venom symbiote has bonded with both Eddie Brock and his son Dylan at different points. Now, both Brocks are going head-to-head, determined to be the one true Venom! Father versus son in a showdown of showdowns that threatens to tear the world asunder!”

Of course, this being an event, it’s not just about Eddie and Dylan fighting over Venom. Agent Anti-Venom (aka Flash Thompson), Red Goblin (aka Normie Osborn), Widow (aka Natasha Romanov), Carnage (aka Cletus Kasady), Spider-Man (aka Peter Parker), and Meriduis (a future version of Eddie Brock) are taking part in this war.

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Secret Six Reading Order

DC Comics is full of teams and organizations, some more famous than others. Everybody knows the Justice League and Suicide Squad, but you can’t say the same about the underused Secret Six.

Created at the end of the 1960s by E. Nelson Bridwell and Frank Springer, The Secret Six is the name given to a succession of clandestine, non-governmental special ops teams. The team, to put it simply, was at the time of its creation, DC’s version of Mission: Impossible (which was launched on television in 1966!).

The team features generally six members who all possess special skill sets but also some dark secrets that, if revealed or exploited, would result in imprisonment, disgrace, or death. They are led by the faceless Mockingbird, often with each character assuming that the leader must be one of the other five members. 

Each team can be read independently from the other, so let’s explore the several versions of Secret Six that exist in the main continuity with this Secret Six reading order!

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Doctor Octopus: Origin Story of Spider-Man’s “Superior” Enemy

Among Spider-Man‘s many iconic enemies, Doctor Octopus occupies a notable place–right after the infamous Green Goblin. Octopuses are not natural enemies to the spiders, so this is an exception. Introduced in 1963 in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man #3, this supervillain was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

Doc Ock’s real name is Otto Octavius. He is a mad scientist who is highly intelligent, myopic, and in control of four mechanical arms that he built himself. Those arms were the original idea of Steve Ditko. He suggested it to Stan Lee who came up with the rest, the name and the origin story.

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Darkseid Reading Order

If Marvel’s Thanos is nowadays vastly known, he is not the only tyrannical ruler with a deadly agenda for the rest of the Universe. Before him, there was another one introduced in the DC Universe by none other than Jack Kirby. We are obviously talking about Darkseid, a New God and the tyrannical ruler of the planet Apokolips. 

Darkseid first appeared in a cameo Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #134 (1970) in what is known as the beginning of the Fourth World Saga–he made his first full appearance in Forever People #1.

Born Prince Uxas, Darkseid took control of the planet Apokolip, a nightmarish dystopia that is the complete opposite of its sister planet, New Genesis, a utopian world ruled by the wise and benevolent Highfather. The inhabitants of these planets possess incredible powers and abilities far beyond those of ordinary mortals. Eventually, the two went to war against each other. But a peace was ultimately signed and required an exchange of “hostages” as Highfather’s son, Scott Free (Miracle Man), was traded for Darkseid’s son, Orion.

What Darkseid really wants is to eliminate all free will from the universe. To achieve that, he searched the Anti-Life Equation and that’s why he took an interest in Earth as he thought he could piece together the Equation by probing the minds of every human. But he also had to fight the heroes of Earth. He tried other approaches over the years to accomplish his desired goal. From antagonist in Jack Kirby’s saga, he became the greatest adversary of the Justice League.

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The Essential Comic Book Vocabulary Guide

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Each subject has its own lexicon and specialized terminology, and the world of comic books is no exception. New readers can be confused when words such as “continuity,” “variant covers,” or “crossovers” pop up.

As a medium, comics have created a rich and distinct language over the years. Prominent creators and scholars like Will Eisner, Scott McCloud, R. C. Harvey, and Dylan Horrocks have worked to formalize and clarify comic-book language. To help you navigate the Comic Book World, we’ve put together a Glossary of comics terminology—a guide with the most popular terms and phrases you can encounter.

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