Update 7-25-10 - Blackest Night, War of the Gods, JLA Classified

Maybe an update to the reading order of the DC Universe Trade Paperback Timeline will ease everyone's flight back from the San Diego Comic-Con. We've added a bunch of Blackest Night-era books, including fitting Justice League: Cry for Justice in with Blackest Night (and certainly by now everyone's seen Hix's Blackest Night trade reading order, right?); there's also some updates to our Batman Reborn and Superman: New Krypton reading orders.

Also, by popular demand, I've found a place for all the JLA Classified collections, during a period where JLA had rotating creative teams like JLA Classified, and just before JLA crosses over with Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis.

By far my favorite addition to the DCU TPB Timeline this time around, however, is the Shazam: Greatest Stories Ever Told trade paperback. Not only does this collect an issue of the mostly uncollected Power of Shazam series by Jerry Ordway (a couple of issues of which also found in the Starman collections), but it also has, get this, a War of the Gods tie-in issue. Seriously! It's a relatively minor issue, but a fun one (Captain Marvel vs Lobo!), and given that the Wonder Woman crossover War of the Gods has been otherwise ignored in collected format, I think this is pretty neat.

Thanks to everyone who's mentioned the timeline on their own sites or in message boards; I appreciate it!

Update 7-14-10 - Batman, Manhunter, Hitman, Shadowpact

If you were watching the Collected Editions Twitter feed a couple Saturdays ago, you saw that we spend a day making major updates to the reading order of the DC Trade Paperback Timeline, including completing the listings for Batman, Manhunter, Hitman, Hawkgirl, Shadowpact, Brave and the Bold, and a number of other series.

Obviously there are new graphic novels coming out every week, but this latest update represents a milestone for the timeline -- to a great extent, the timeline is now completely caught up with all the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths and relevant pre-Crisis trade paperbacks that DC Comics has ever published. Consider that version 1.0 of the DC Trade Paperback Timeline is now complete.

We will leave the current update standing for a little while longer, and then we already have more to add to the timeline -- additional details for New Krypton, Batman Reborn, and Blackest Night (you caught Paul Hicks' great Blackest Night trade reading order, right?).

One item now being discussed at timeline headquarters is the addition of Sandman books to the DC TPB Timeline. Neil Gaiman's Death is soon to cameo in Action Comics, but also those characters have appeared in JLA and JSA, enough so that if you were following the timeline, you'd want to have read some Sandman before reading those DC stories (not to mention the loose Sandman Mystery Theatre/Starman crossover). And of course there's already a technically-Vertigo series on the timeline with Animal Man. So that's an item still to be considered.

Let me know if you see any books out of place, and happy reading!