The Outhouse - The Greatest Comic Book Forum

by **Kcrizzy17** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:24 pm

I have always been a huge Marvel/DC fan but have never really read comics. Recently I decided that it was time and I started browsing around at some of my favorite characters(Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Flash, etc) And I purchased a the Kevin Smith Reboot of Green Arrow thinking it was a "from the beginning" reboot. I was clearly mistaken because now I've been thrown into a universe and have no clue what is going on. I have seen a lot of cartoons, movies, etc involving dc and marvel, though we all know how far from the original some can be. Can anyone help me find a good starting place for beginning to read Green arrow, green lantern, and flash? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

by **Chesscub** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:27 pm

Actually the Kevin Smith Green Arrow is a good point to start, all you need to know is that he died a while before that.

Green Lantern, I know some will groan, I'd say start with Green Lantern Rebirth

Flash, I'd say some of the Geoff Johns trades if you can find them, otherwise Flash Rebirth.

by **Rockman** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:29 pm

Flash Rebirth was a convoluted mess.

by **Zechs** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:33 pm

Kcrizzy17 wrote:I have always been a huge Marvel/DC fan but have never really read comics. Recently I decided that it was time and I started browsing around at some of my favorite characters(Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Flash, etc) And I purchased a the Kevin Smith Reboot of Green Arrow thinking it was a "from the beginning" reboot. I was clearly mistaken because now I've been thrown into a universe and have no clue what is going on. I have seen a lot of cartoons, movies, etc involving dc and marvel, though we all know how far from the original some can be. Can anyone help me find a good starting place for beginning to read Green arrow, green lantern, and flash? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

Green Arrow Year One by Andy Diggle and Jock. Green Lantern? Depends. I'd say Green Lantern Rebirth. For Flash? I'd say start with Geoff Johns Flash Omnibus. Avoid anything recent of the Flash because it's too confusing especially Flash Rebirth. Or wait until the first trade of the Nu52 Flash comes out.

by **PDH** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:50 pm

I would start with Marvel, frankly.

by **Chesscub** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 5:07 pm

PDH wrote:I would start with Marvel, frankly.

Wow that was really unhelpful. :smt011

by **Chesscub** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 5:08 pm

Kcrizzy17 wrote:I have always been a huge Marvel/DC fan but have never really read comics. Recently I decided that it was time and I started browsing around at some of my favorite characters(Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Flash, etc) And I purchased a the Kevin Smith Reboot of Green Arrow thinking it was a "from the beginning" reboot. I was clearly mistaken because now I've been thrown into a universe and have no clue what is going on. I have seen a lot of cartoons, movies, etc involving dc and marvel, though we all know how far from the original some can be. Can anyone help me find a good starting place for beginning to read Green arrow, green lantern, and flash? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

From a Marvel stand point what kind of characters do you like?

by **sdsichero** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 5:10 pm

This is all outdated due to the New DCU but, Secret Origins was fun enough.

And for Marvel, I loved these as a kid (borrowed from the library multiple times)

by **Doc Jon** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 5:13 pm

I'd recommend some of the Waid run for Flash. :-D

It won't help you with the current stuff, but stuff like Terminal Velocity was gold...

by **Kcrizzy17** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 5:55 pm

From a Marvel stand point what kind of characters do you like?[/quote]

From a Marvel Stand point my favorite are The Avengers, Iron Man, Thor, and of course Spiderman and X-men. Thanks for all the help so far too everyone.

by **SuperginraiX** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 6:39 pm

Starting points are tricky because everything is going to be mired in some continuity or other... unless you start at the very beginning and most of those stories are no longer canon.

As far as "what matters," you COULD start up with the latest DC reboot stuff with Flash and Green Arrow which SHOULD give you enough pertinent information to get going. Green Lantern would probably make more sense to start with the Green Lantern series from Geoff Johns and Carlos Pacheco and work your way up from there. You could work your way back to Green Lantern Rebirth but that is pretty much a housekeeping story to GET to the regular Green Lantern book.

Here's the Amazon listing for Volume One to show you what to look for:

http://www.amazon.com/Green-Lantern-Vol ... 598&sr=1-5

And if you want to start at the beginning of Johns' run, here's Rebirth on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Green-Lantern-Reb ... 598&sr=1-4

If you want to start at the VERY beginning and don't mind your comics without color, you really can't go wrong with Showcase Presents: Green Lantern. It's stories from the late fifties/ early sixties and is full of silly adventures that don't matter anymore but it IS technically the beginning.

http://www.amazon.com/Showcase-Presents ... 850&sr=1-1

And if you just want to skip right to the good stuff, get Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps War. You miss a lot of the build up this way but you can always go back and grab them if this interests you. It's sort of jumping right into the deep end of the pool but you'll find a lot of helpful people here willing to explain some of the more continuity heavy bits.

http://www.amazon.com/Green-Lantern-Sin ... 12&sr=1-12

by **bkthomson** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 6:40 pm

Current Green Arrow has not been that great but if you can dig up Mike Grell's Green Arrow: Long Bow Hunter that is an amazing limited series.

by **mrorangesoda** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 6:45 pm

Seconding Green Arrow: Year One by Andy Diggle and Jock- http://www.amazon.com/Green-Arrow-Year-Andy-Diggle/dp/1401217435/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331678426&sr=8-1- it's an origin story, so no confusion. It's also frickin' awesome. From what I've seen, the recent Green Arrow relaunch has sucked. There's a new writer on the book starting this month who is very good and the start of her run is supposed to be a clear starting point.

Flash- pick up the recent relaunch. #6 just came out. The first trade will be out in a couple months.

Green Lantern- Secret Origin by Geoff Johns is probably your best bet.

by **SuperginraiX** » Tue Mar 13, 2012 6:55 pm

Flash is actually more difficult to recommend anything because the book has been messed up for a long time. The good stuff for me is quite a ways back to the dark days of the nineties.

My start on the character was The Return of Barry Allen. Mark Waid does a great job of getting you up to speed so you won't by confused about the who's and what's and it'll probably give you a good foundation of where to hit next.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Flash-Return- ... 565&sr=1-4

There are a bunch of other Mark Waid penned books that you can search out if that interests you. Otherwise, your best bet, again, is Geoff Johns. His first run on the title is pretty damn good stuff even though it also started in the nineties.

http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Book-Blood- ... 797&sr=1-3

Or if you're willing to spend some change, you can get a larger chunk of story in Omnibus form.

http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Geoff-Johns ... 797&sr=1-1

And if you're looking for something more modern, I guess your best start would be the Brightest Day relaunch. It doesn't last long before it gets mixed up into Flashpoint territory but it's a very good comic.

http://www.amazon.com/Flash-Vol-Dastard ... 997&sr=1-4

And here's the latest run on the book. I haven't read it so I can neither recommend or burn it in effigy.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Flash-Vol-Mov ... 104&sr=1-2

Not available in book form quite yet but you can probably search out the regular comics if you're interested.

And what if you want to start from the VERY beginning? And by "VERY beginning," I mean Silver Age Beginning... You can search out the black and white Showcase Presents book! It looks like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Showcase-Presents ... 233&sr=1-4

This is the book that launched DC's Silver Age line of super-hero comics so it's got some historical significance. If you want to read these things in color, you can get them in Chronicle form:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Flash-Chronic ... 306&sr=1-1

Oh, you can get Green Lantern that way as well.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Green-Lantern ... 341&sr=1-1