“Wait, wait, wait. There’s more. For issue #2, which covers the Silver Age to Crisis on Infinite Earths, I literally sat down and went through every single DC comic book published from 1956 to 1986—let me say that again, I literally sat down with every single comic—and wrote down every new character in order of publication.” – Mark Waid, “Making New History with Mark Waid, link here!

The number one question I see pop up time and time again on Reddit, at the comic book shop, on YouTube, Facebook, you name it – is “where do I start with reading comic books?” Hell, I had this same question back in 2013 when I wanted to get into Daredevil. The answer that I received, and the answer that still gets thrown around over a decade later is basically this – “You can start at the beginning, or you can read these 10 best selling, best storylines to better understand the character.” I have a few grievances with this answer, both from my own experiences and from the fact that this fandom, as a whole, is not growing and in desperate need of new people entering it. The best place to start reading comic books is and always has been with some out of continuity, self-contained storylines for the character you’re interested in. Thats it. Plain and simple. You want to get into Batman? Go read “Year One”, or “Hush”, or “The Long Halloween”. You want to get into Daredevil? Go read “Season One”, or Frank Miller’s run starting at #158 of the original series. Telling someone to go and read hundreds of comics of a character or else they won’t be able to understand the references and the impact of storylines and dialogue is horrible advice and causes people to be overwhelmed and not stick with it. The irony in all of this is that the best place to start reading comics is with not reading them and instead watching movies and tv shows. The film and television industries figured out a long time ago that very few people want to have homework prior to leisure time, which is why almost every Batman movie over the last 40 years is an origin story, or why poor uncle Ben has to die all over again every 4 years. I absolutely love comic books and I insist that there are comic books for everyone, on top of the comics that supercede the medium and attain a level of artistic work that should be taught in schools, but continuity kills comic book interest for those trying to dip their toes into comics.

In 2024, both Marvel and DC started new imprints of “new continuity/ out-of-continuity” comic books. For Marvel, they were reviving (for the umpteenth time) their Ultimate Universe, with Ultimate Spider-Man, Black Panther, and X-Men spearheading the intitiative. For DC, the new imprint is called “Absolute”, and intititally consisted of “the trinity” – Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. According to the data presented by ICv2 in this article, the top 10 selling comics of 2024 consisted of 9 books from Marvel and DC, and of those 9, 8 of them were from the new universes. What this shows, to me, is that there are plenty of people who want to read comic books, but feel that the weight of years and years of prior storylines prevents them from committing. I can speak from personal experience that I am currently reading almost exclusively absolute and ultimate from Marvel and DC – in fact, the only Marvel book I am reading monthly aside from Ultimate Marvel is Daredevil by Ahmed (which, I have a laundry list of problems with, primary of which is that I never read the Zdarsky run and this run heavily relies on events from his run). I believe that there are two groups of comic book fans, and three groups to consider when making comic books. The first group is the “veteran comic book fans” – people who have been reading comic books for decades, and have a wealth of comic book knowledge and continuity prowess available. The second group is the “newbie” – they are actively collecting comic books but are limited by what is readily available either at the comic shop or in collected editions. The last group is people who don’t read comics, but want to. These are the people who are aware of comic books and superheroes, they might have watched a few movies or shows, but aren’t ready to jump into comic books as a whole. The best part about “out-of-continuity” comic books is that they appeal to all three groups of people. The newbies and non-readers get an opportunity to start at issue 1 and discover with everyone else. The veterans get to have their expectations subverted and see how these characters can be slightly changed and watch the ripple effect cascade.

I started this article with a quote from Mark Waid addressing his new comic books series “New History of the DC Universe”. By doing so, I hope that I shined some light on the insanity that is Waid reading 30 years worth of DC comics for the sole-purpose of streamlining and condensing it to present it to new readers. However, I also picked Waid specifically because he is one of my favorite comic book writers. I love that Waid hides references within his stories and creates stories in which his artists can do the same. I love that he, unlike some other comic book creators, does not require prior reading to understand the story but rewards those that have the prior knowledge. I love that he loves comic books, love the superheroes that he writes, and loves the people that read them. There is a place for continuity within comic book stories and series – I don’t want every issue of Black Panther to show me how T’Challa got his powers – but I also don’t want to be completely lost reading a comic because I haven’t also read a super obscure issue from 1973 that is not even available to read in 2025. I know there is so much more involved in these decisions than simply making a comic book; and, frankly, I do not make comic books or edit them, but I know business and I know the feeling of wanting to get into something but not knowing how. No other media (television, movies, books, music, video games, etc) requires someone to take a 300 level college course 5 hours a week before they can begin the hobby. Comic books need to be accessible to everyone regardless of prior knowledge, which circles me back to my original statement – continuity kills comic book interest.

For anyone wanting to get into comic books, please, just start. Go and subscribe to “Marvel Unlimited” or “DC Universe Infinite” and pick a random collection for the character you are interested in. Accept that there are going to be moments of confusion where you don’t quite know who someone is or an event that they are talking about. And if you cannot get past that, and no judgement if that’s the case, go read Ultimate Marvel or Absolute DC. These will allow you to not be confused and allow you to truly see if comic books are for you. Then, and only then, should you look into popular storylines and events and read those. And please, do not just start with silver-age Marvel or golden-age DC – you’ll immediately be turned off from comic books and superheroes in general.