DC Comics has been on a quite a tear lately. The company completely replaced their editorial staff in the early ’20s and took things in a new direction, trying to rebuild the old school DC Multiverse in the modern day. They are currently the bestselling superhero publisher in the land and a big reason for that is the success of DCU. While there’s a whole cottage industry of people who want to tell you that the new cinematic universe is a failure, it’s driven interest in the publisher in numerous ways. One of the best things about the DCU so far is that they aren’t afraid to try to sell you comic books. DC Studios head James Gunn wants you to read comics and the company has done an outstanding job of giving people comic accurate stories in new ways.
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Gunn has done a fantastic job of telling fans what books to read, adapting ideas and storylines from numerous classic stories. However, the DCU is still in its infancy, meaning that there are numerous DC stories that DCU fans would love that haven’t been on the big screen yet. Reading these stories would lead them further into the comics, their fandom growing. These five DC stories haven’t been adapted and are perfect for DCU fans, stories that will open up a whole new multiverse for readers.
5) Formerly Known As the Justice League
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The Justice League International is amazing, taking the greatest superhero team ever and making them into the greatest superhero comedy troupe you can imagine. Those stories from the late, great Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire starred an amazing roster of Justice Leaguers in the kind of superhero comedy sitcom in comic form that was totally unique at the time. This version of the team was always extremely popular and DC gave them another chance to shine in the mid ’00s with Formerly Known As the Justice League, a story that saw the team come back together for a hare-brained get rich quick scheme from team financier Maxwell Lord. This book is consistently hilarious, each character playing the perfect role in the story’s comedy. I think one of the things that is different about Marvel and DC it’s that Marvel is more about using the superhero to look at multiple genres, while DC uses multiple genres to look at the superhero. Marvel tells superhero stories, DC tells stories about the lives of superheroes and Formerly Known As the Justice League is a perfect example of this approach working like a charm.
4) JLA/JSA: Virtue and Vice
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If you like superhero teams, you have the Justice Society and the Justice League to thank for it. These two teams brought together different eras of DC’s greatest heroes, telling the biggest superhero stories of their times. In the Silver Age, the two started to have multiversal crossovers, something that fell to the wayside in the post-Crisis DC Universe. The JSA fell from prominence, but all of that changed in the late ’90s, when JSA became the hottest team book in comics. This eventually led to Geoff Johns and David S. Goyer teaming up with the late great Carlos Pacheco for JLA/JSA: Virtue and Vice. The two teams come together to start a new annual team-up tradition, but things go terribly when various members of the group become evil and attack. The Seven Deadly Sins have been released by two of the most dangerous villains in the universe, and only the power of the two greatest teams can save the day. This book really shows you the sense of community of the DC superhero community, the way their relationships with each other inform their superheroic careers, and how all of that works. It’s an amazing JLA/JSA crossover and will appeal to even the newest DCU fans.
3) Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons
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Wonder Woman and the Amazons are one of the best parts of the DC Multiverse, but they are often left out of the conversation of stories that new fans should read or even stories that should be adapted. There are numerous amazing stories starring Diana out there but the one that gives you the best view of what she and her compatriots mean to the DC Multiverse – and comics and pop culture in general – is Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons, by Kelly Sue DeConnick, Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha, and Nicola Scott. The three-issue Black Label book takes readers back the days of ancient Greece, when the female gods of Olympus decided to create protectors for woman. The Amazons are born, inspiring human women to stand up, but the gods aren’t all pleased that this all-female force is wreaking havoc on the world they’ve created. It’s a story that’s about the affairs of gods, but also about the patriarchy, what it does to women (the page with the vases is one of the most heartbreaking things you’ll ever see because it’s all real; men did and still do those things to women), and the power of hope and love. It’s the greatest Wonder Woman story where Diana barely appears, Greek myth in comic form. This book has some of the greatest art and writing you’ll ever see and it’s perfect for new DCU fans who want to know what all the Amazon fuss is about.
2) “The Great Darkness Saga”
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So, I’m going to readily admit that this is a strange choice for this list. The Legion of Superheroes are one of the most complicated parts of the DC Multiverse, a massive team of teen superheroes fighting evil in the 31st century, and they don’t always appeal to new fans. The Legion originated the superhero soap opera style of comics that Uncanny X-Men would make popular in the late ’70s and they are more new readers friendly than most fans imagine. The characters have simple names that tell you what their powers are and their colorful costumes are distinct even if their powers always aren’t cluing you in on their personality. Their adventures can be daunting, but there’s a story that will make DCU fans fall in love with the team – “The Great Darkness Saga”, a story that ran through Legion of Superheroes (Vol. 2) #290-294, by Paul Levitz, Keith Giffen, and Larry Mahlstedt. The story sees the Legion find a threat unlike any they’ve ever experienced, leading to the rebirth of the ultimate villain, Darkseid and a battle with stakes unlike anything you’ve ever seen. The story does a fantastic job of giving you everything you need to understand the team, all while giving readers amazing superhero action. It’s superheroes at their finest and perfect for any new fan.
1) Kingdom Come
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Kingdom Come is a ’90s DC classic, a four-issue Elseworlds series from Mark Waid and Alex Ross that showed that the greats never go out of style. The book takes place in a future where Superman ended up retiring after the death of Lois Lane at the Joker’s hands, replaced by a newer, more violent breed of hero. The rest of his generation follows suit, but these new heroes lead the world to the brink of disaster, with the old guard returning to show the world what justice was all about. However, dark forces have gathered in the shadows, ones that want to destroy the returned Justice League. This book is about the rise of the extreme heroes of the ’90s and why the heroes of old school DC didn’t need to change to suit the trends, they just needed to be presented at their best. It’s a love letter to DC Comics, a story that hits all the right notes on its way to its flawless ending. It’s a stone cold classic about what superheroes mean and it will make any DCU fan fall in love with the comics.
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