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The Rocketeer Reading Order, A guide to Dave Stevens’ cult comics and the IDW miniseries

First appearing as a backup feature in Starslayer #2, published by Pacific Comics in 1982, The Rocketeer is a now-cult comic book created by Dave Stevens (1955-2008) who was heavily inspired by the aesthetic of pulp magazines, early Hollywood serials, and vintage aviation.

Set in 1930s Los Angeles, the story of The Rocketeer follows Cliff Secord, a young and cocky stunt pilot trying to make a name for himself. Cliff’s life takes an unexpected turn when he discovers a mysterious rocket pack hidden in his hangar. This experimental device allows him to fly, making him a target at the same time as it was originally stolen by gangsters during a botched robbery and ends up in Cliff’s possession. They want it back, as does its creator, Howard Hughes. Soon, Cliff’s girlfriend, an aspiring actress and model named Betty, becomes entangled in Cliff’s adventures when villains attempt to use her to get to him. To make matters worse, the Nazis view the rocket pack as a potential weapon that could give them a significant advantage in their plans for world domination and want to get it for themselves.

A skilled storyteller and an exceptionally gifted artist, Stevens injected everything he liked in the comics. From his love of the iconic pin-up model Bettie Page to retro-futurism and aviation culture, the aesthetic of pulp magazines and early serials, and the glamour of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

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Star Trek Comics Reading Order, the 2022 IDW shared Universe

Since the premiere of Star Trek: The Original Series in 1966, the universe created by Gene Roddenberry has never stopped expanding. The exploration of strange new worlds and other civilizations has unfolded across movies, television series, video games, novels, and comic books, making Star Trek one of the biggest media franchises of all time.

Since the first Star Trek comic was published in 1967 by Gold Key Comics, the franchise’s comics have been almost continuously in publication. Over the years, they have been produced by various publishers, including Marvel, DC Comics, and, of course, IDW Publishing, which secured the rights in 2006 and has been producing new comics ever since.

Recently, IDW has decided to go where no one has gone before by launching an epic new adventure: a Star Trek Multiverse of sorts. Described by co-writer Jackson Lanzing as “an Avengers-style ongoing crossover that treats Gene Roddenberry’s creation as a living universe,” this new Star Trek series brings together characters from across the galaxy—and all eras and variations of the beloved franchise.

The stardate is 2378, marking the return of an omnipotent Benjamin Sisko from the Bajoran Wormhole. He is sent by the Prophets on a mission that only he and a crew of Starfleet members from every era of Star Trek can accomplish. These new stories take place a few years after the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, after the USS Voyager returned home but before the events of Nemesis, the final Star Trek: The Next Generation movie.

While IDW has published many Star Trek comics in the past, this article focuses on the interconnected timeline of IDW Star Trek comics launched in 2022.

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Hasbro Comic Book Universe Reading Order (2005-2018)

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As the Energon Universe featuring characters from Transformers and G.I. Joe is expanding, we take a look back at the previous Comic Book Universe based on several Hasbro brands and published by IDW – The Hasbro Comic Book Universe or HCBU!

IDW picked up the Transformers license in 2005 and obtained the rights for G.I. Joe in 2008, but the Hasbro Comic Book Universe was officially launched in 2016 with the release of the Revolution miniseries, a crossover event involving many characters from Hasbro and establishing a shared universe for all these brands. It was then decided that all the stories previously published were retroactively set in the same continuity.

Revolution wasn’t IDW’s first crossover event connecting several licensed series. The publisher released Infestation at the beginning of 2011 in which a zombie infectation spread between dimensions and reached into the worlds of Transformers, Star Trek, G.I. Joe, and Ghostbusters. None of them interact with each other at any point. A follow up called Infestation 2 was released a year later involving this time The Transformers, Dungeons & Dragons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joe and 30 Days of Night.

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30 Days of Night Reading Order

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30 Days of Night Reading Order

Published by IDW in 2002, 30 Days of Night is a three-issue horror comic book series written by Steve Niles (The October Faction) and illustrated by Ben Templesmith. Multiple miniseries followed, as well as novels and movie (and audio) adaptations. It did in fact become a movie after Niles wrote the comic version of the unsuccessful film pitch he had developed.

The story is about vampires in Barrow, Alaska, a place where the sun sets for about 30 days. As most of the locals go away during that nightly time, the ones who stayed become the target of a group of vampires. The town’s only hope of survival lies in the hands of Stella and Eben, the local husband-and-wife sheriff team. They have to face the vampire elder Vicente and survive until the sun came back.

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Godzilla Comics Reading Order, From Marvel to IDW and Legendary

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Like King Kong, Godzilla is a monster and an international pop culture icon. This prehistoric reptilian monster made his debut in the 1954 movie directed and co-written by Ishirō Honda. A movie franchise was developed, and the kaiju appeared soon enough in various other media. It never stopped since.

Naturally, he was featured in several mangas, but we’re here today to talk about Godzilla in American comics.

Following a deal with Toho Studios, Marvel Comics published a Godzilla Comics set in the Marvel Universe. The King of Monsters was depicted more as an anti-hero way too big for our time! It lasted two years before Marvel lost the rights to the monster. Following this loss, Marvel would find a way to continue to use Godzilla for a few years afterward by introducing a mutated version of the character who no longer looked like the Toho versions.

Years later, Dark Horse acquired the comic rights to the Godzilla franchise. The company published various comic books (one-shots, miniseries, ongoing series) based on the monster for the next 12 years.

But no one has used Godzilla as much as IDW, a company that also published Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers, Sonic the Hedgehog, and more. They began publishing Godzilla comics in 2011 and still hold the license, offering a variety of stories and several continuities (the miniseries are all standalone stories).

IDW is not, right now, the only publisher putting comics with Godzilla out there. Legendary has also released several tie-in graphic novels with Godzilla, all part of their Monsterverse Universe.

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Sonic IDW Comics Reading Order, Gotta Go Fast!

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Gotta go fast! Like with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Transformers, or the G.I. Joe franchise, IDW took over the Sonic franchise to tell new adventures with the Blue Blur. The Hedgehog was at Archie Comics for 24 years before entering a new era at IDW which passed a deal with Sega in 2017 to produce a new series of Sonic Comics. The editor even recruited lead writer Ian Flynn and artist Tyson Hesse, who both worked on Archie Comics’s Sonic the Hedgehog before.

Set in a universe similar to the game universe, after the events of Sonic Forces, the Sonic Comics follows the Blue Blur and his friends on new adventures as they race around the world to defeat the evil Dr. Eggman’s robotic forces, and more!

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Ghostbusters IDW Reading Order

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Like with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joe, and Transformers, IDW has been the house of the Ghostbusters comics for years–starting in 2008, the last miniseries was published in 2020. That’s a lot of miniseries, one-shots, ongoing series, and crossovers.

The Ghostbusters franchise started with the first movie directed by Ivan Reitman and written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. It introduced us to this team of ghost hunters, professors Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Egon Spengler–quickly joined by Winston Zeddemore–who had to face the evil Zuul to save New York. They became heroes and came back for a second movie, and a lot more.

The Franchise gave us some pretty successful TV animated shows,  video games, books, and of course comic books. In that domain, NOW Comics and Marvel UK started publishing The Real Ghostbusters, comics based on the TV series of the same name, in the late 1980s. The Quebec-based comic company 88MPH Studios also did that in the 2000s. There even was a one-shot Manga in 2008.

And then, IDW acquired the right to publish the Ghostbusters comics and went in a different direction, forgetting the TV show to focus instead on the main continuity established by the first two movies–and the 2009 Ghostbusters: The Video Game.

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Transformers IDW Reading Order

Like with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Buffyverse, or the G.I. Joe comic book franchise, IDW took over the Transformers comics and launched its own continuity–and there are some discussions about the more legitimate continuity, but it’s not the subject of this article. We are here to talk about the third Transformers comics series.

The first was published by Marvel (from 1984 to 1991), and the second by Dreamwave Productions (from 2002 to 2004). After that, IDW Publishing took over with the third series (the Generation 1 continuity) written by Simon Furman starting with issue #0 in October 2005 and a regular series starting in January 2006 (and ending in November 2018). The fourth series is a relaunch at IDW that started in 2019.

And so, as the official synopsis tells it, it began on Earth, in 2006. The fate of the planet is already sealed, its destiny decided… by the marauding mechanical beings known as Decepticons. In their way stand an embattled crew of seven hardy Autobot warriors, sworn to prevent the impending Armageddon at any cost, and an unlikely trio of human misfits, pulled kicking and screaming into a hitherto hidden world of pain and hurt. The can of worms is open, the genie is out of the bottle… and nothing will ever be the same again! It begins again — here, now — the saga of the war-torn robots in disguise, the Transformers!

In 2022, IDW Publishing lost the license to publish Transformers comics. Skybound Entertainment (an imprint of Image Comics) took it over and created the Energon Universe.

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Usagi Yojimbo Reading Order, the comics that inspired Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles

Now adapted on Netflix under the title “Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles,” Usagi Yojimbo is certainly not a new series. In fact, this creator-owned comic book series was created by Stan Sakai in 1984 – Usagi Yojimbo first appeared in Albedo Anthropomorphics #2, published by Thoughts and Images in November 1984. 

Openly inspired by Japanese cinema and real-life samurai Miyamoto Musashi, Usagi Yojimbo explores Japanese history, folklore, arts, and more. The story tells the adventures of the Miyamoto Usagi, a rōnin samurai rabbit, in Japan at the beginning of the Edo period (early 17th century) – it is an anthropomorphic comic where humans are replaced by animals – as he travels the country on shogyusha, sometimes monetizing his services as a bodyguard. 

The concept of the series, with Usagi meeting new people which each new adventure during his travels, makes reading Usagi Yojimbo easy as you don’t have to track down every book in order of publication. You can just pick a story at random. Of course, if you like what you read, you can also start from the beginning.

The publication history of Usagi Yojimbo is not clear and simple, as the series has been published by multiple publishers: Fantagraphics Books (Usagi Yojimbo Vol. 1), Mirage Studios (Usagi Yojimbo Vol. 2), Dark Horse Comics (Usagi Yojimbo Vol. 3), and lately IDW Publishing (Usagi Yojimbo Vol. 4). The samurai also appeared in occasional short stories published by other companies.

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GI Joe Comics Reading Order, A Real American Hero!

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When I wrote this article, it was announced that IDW would stop publishing GI Joe Comics. It’s now a done deal and the Joe-verse has been relaunched by Skybound as part of their Energon Universe. This is a new entry point, but if you are interested in getting back to the beginning with what was originally done at Marvel Comics and later at IDW, this is your guide.

As a licensed property by Hasbro, G.I. Joe comics have been released from 1967 to today (except between 1977 and 1981, and between 1997 and 2000), but it was not anything of note before the launch of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero in 1982.

“’G.I. Joe’ is the code name for America’s daring, highly trained special mission force. Its purpose: to defend human freedom against Cobra, a ruthless terrorist organization determined to rule the world.”

Hasbro relaunched the toy line and needed some promotion to go with it (there’s an episode of The Toys That Made Us on Netflix about that). At that time, the move to go with a comic book tie-in G.I. Joe series was not a sure thing, but Larry Hama who wrote most of the comics made it a success (with art by Herb Trimpe at first). He created a solid and realistic military universe with great mythology to go with it and interesting characters.

With 155 issues and several spin-offs, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero was a hit for a long time at Marvel Comics. It ended in 1994. A second and a third G.I. Joe comic book series were published by Devil’s Due Productions from 2001 to 2008 (80 issues and some spin-offs), then it was revived by IDW Publishing (like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers) with issue 155 ½ written by Larry Hama who picked up the story where he had left it at Marvel Comics. From there, a lot of GI Joe Comics was published. A Lot.

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