DC Crisis reading order?

Batsy

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I'm relatively new to the whole DC crisis thing and I want to read Final Crisis but I know there are other Crisis like Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis. What's the order that I should read them in so I won't get lost?

From what I've seen on the web this is the supposed order:
- Crisis on Infinite Earth
- Identity Crisis
- Countdown to Infinite Crisis
- Infinite Crisis
- Countdown to Final Crisis
- Final Crisis

Is this right?
 
Countdown to Infinite Crisis was merely a single issue that was collected in The OMAC Project tpb.

Yes, that's right. Although I wouldn't suggest reading Countdown to Final Crisis. :o

Oh, and btw, if you're relatively new to DC, you'll probably be horribly confused by all of those books. Final Crisis most of all.
 
Don't read Countdown to Final Crisis. None of what happens really has much impact, if any, on Final Crisis.

....Not that I could tell, actually. Final Crisis confused everyone. :o
 
i've read all the important Batman stuff I could get my hands on and I'm curious about DC crisis story. I want to give it a go but I know there's a lot to read.

What about 52? is that necessary? I just want to make sure I don't get lost because I missed something important in another comic.
 
In chronological order:

-Crisis on Infinite Earths occurred over twenty years ago, and is actually not that necessary to read if you're just now getting into DC. I'm a huge DC fan and to date I've never read even half of it.

-There are a lot of things that happened throughout the DC Universe between the single issue of Countdown to Infinite Crisis and Infinite Crisis itself. Like, half a year's worth of stories that are collected in four separate miniseries. In order of relevance to Infinite Crisis, these are: 1)"The OMAC Project," 2)"Villains United," 3)"Day of Vengeance, and 4)"Rann/Thanagar War." All of these miniseries will play some part in the events of Infinite Crisis, but out of all four, only The OMAC Project is absolutely necessary to get a feel for what's going on as Infinite Crisis starts. In fact, Countdown to Infinite Crisis is only collected in the OMAC Project TPB, so if you want CtIC, you sort of have to get the OMAC Project.

In fact pt 2, The OMAC Project was so tied to the events of Infinite Crisis that not all of the OMAC Project story was told in the OMAC Project miniseries. There is a separate story, called "Superman: Sacrifice," that takes place in the middle of the OMAC Project miniseries that is pivotal to knowing the full OMAC Project story. That being said, the OMAC Project TPB contains the final chapter of "Sacrifice" so you'll know what happened in Sacrifice even if you don't get the entire separate TPB.

Confusing? Yeah, you're not alone. Infinite Crisis was DC's single biggest crossover event, ever, and contains months upon years of continuity porn across basically every single title it was printing at the time. It was incredibly rewarding for a hardcore DC reader, but not really very newb-friendly.

Moving on...

-52 is very, very good -- one of the best series to have come out of DC -- and borderline necessary. It occurs immediately after Infinite Crisis and pays off a lot of the plot threads from IC. I definitely recommend this whether you're interested in the Crises or not.

-I definitely do not recommend Countdown to Final Crisis, and I doubt you'll ever hear anyone disagree with that lack of recommendation. Do not get Countdown to Final Crisis. It is s***. It is one of the worst series ever written. Furthermore, it ends up having virtually nothing to do with Final Crisis and will in fact end up confusing you even more about Final Crisis than if you've never read Countdown at all.

-That being said, Final Crisis is incredibly confusing anyway. It bills itself as the third part of the Crisis trilogies, but in reality it has much less to do with the other two Crises and is mostly Grant Morrison going gloriously insane in his basement.
 
Also, Identity Crisis isn't really related to the other Crises in any way, other than provoking the villains to band together, which is something that's followed through on in Villains United, and going on into Infinite Crisis.

But knowing the actual story of Identity Crisis isn't really necessary for an understanding of Infinite Crisis. Just know that the villain Dr. Light raped a woman and was then brainwashed by the heroes, and you're good to go. :up:
 
I'd say Identity Crisis is really the beginning of the mega-arc leading to Infinite Crisis and beyond, though. It basically sets the tone and the starting point for DC's output from that point on. And the mindwipe bit is actually a pretty huge factor for Infinite Crisis and still has repercussions today. Moreover, it's a pretty good jump-in point for someone not totally familiar with DC...rapes and bad climax notwithstanding.

But yeah, I agree that it's a Crisis in name only.
 
Oh yeah, it's a great place for anyone new to jump in and then move forward onto other stories. You get a great feel for characters and their relationships, a decent murder mystery, and some good artwork. Not perfect, but I'd certainly recommend it.

But not much knowledge of Identity Crisis' plot itself is needed in order for readers to move on to the other mega-events. Yeah, it set a lot of important things in motion, but still, once you see the flashbacks showing what happened to Dr. Light, you're pretty much all set as far as prerequisite knowledge for upcoming events go.
 
I'd say that nothing after Crisis on Infinite Earths much mattered.

CoIE tried hard to straighten out continuity and streamline the DC universe but everything after it just to bolloxed it all up again.

I'm recommending you just pick up books that look interesting and don't worry about any continuity. Hopefully someone will come along and just change it again.
 
no comics in the past twenty-six years much mattered lulwut

emot-hurr.gif
 
Yeah i think DavidTyler took some crazy pills.
 
Bit of an overstatement, but I agree to some extent. I used to love DC for its very solid continuity before Infinite Crisis. I kept hoping that would come back after IC, but lately I've just given up. I don't care what anyone's origin or history is like anymore at DC. If I try a comic and it's good, I'll read it. Doesn't matter if someone is acting one way in that series that's totally contradictory to their entire history before that series to me; DC doesn't know what half their characters' histories even look like at this point, so why should I care?
 
Yeah but they very same thing could be said of Marvel in the 90's and now they seem to have there ducks in a row.
 
What? No, Marvel f***s up its continuity all the time, and Heaven forbid their majesties King Bendis and King Millar ever actually try to stay faithful to a character's established personality. :o
 
You might want to read The OMAC Project, Day of Vengeance, Villains United and Rann/Thanagar War before Infinite Crisis too, and maybe Superman: Sacrifice when you read OMAC Project. The events of those two kind of bleed together.
*edit - which is what BrianWilly said... just not as drawn out...
 
Bit of an overstatement, but I agree to some extent. I used to love DC for its very solid continuity before Infinite Crisis. I kept hoping that would come back after IC, but lately I've just given up. I don't care what anyone's origin or history is like anymore at DC. If I try a comic and it's good, I'll read it. Doesn't matter if someone is acting one way in that series that's totally contradictory to their entire history before that series to me; DC doesn't know what half their characters' histories even look like at this point, so why should I care?
I used to love Superman's mythology before Infinite Crisis came along and gave every writer and their dog an excuse to retcon, retcon, and retcon until their eyes fell out.
 
Eh, I'm okay with Superman's more flexible history. Honestly, I think it was a mistake to take the Legion out of his backstory. Both are so enriched by their interaction in Clark's youth.
 
I'm fine with the Legion being brought back into his history because, y'know, it is storyline involving time travel. They're already playing with Superman's past by the very nature of their in-story interaction with Clark. Before New Earth's continuity was retconned in, if the writers had just wanted to have a story where the Legion goes back in time and hung out with Clark, I wouldn't have a problem with it. It wouldn't just be shoehorned into the modern mythos, like all the other recent retcons have been. Yes, they'd be changing Superman's past, but nothing else about Superman's history would be altered, other than present-day Superman having memories of chillaxin' with the Legionaires.
 
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True, there were definitely subtler and less intrusive ways to do it. I'm not a fan of some of the other retcons that have come along with the Legion's return, either.
 
True, there were definitely subtler and less intrusive ways to do it. I'm not a fan of some of the other retcons that have come along with the Legion's return, either.

Like the fact that the most recent Legion Series is from Earth-Prime...
Then how the hell did Supergirl get there?!
 
Oh, yeah, the idea that Waid's Legion turns out to be from Superboy f***ing Prime's future was kind of annoying. They take a harder-edged political bent to the standard Legion formula so, of course, they're from an Earth where their Superman is the multiverse's worst villain? Meh.
 
Superman is apart gradually from my interesting since my wife always narrows me leisure time to company her :(
 
Sorry to resurrect this thread by I don't understand why people wouldn't want to read them? I'm fairly new to the comic scene and I decided to read the infinite crisis story as my first read... haven't gotten them in the mail yet but I'm fairly excited. But after reading this thread I feel like I'll be disappointed ): Is it a bad place for someone to start if they're just getting into comics?
 

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