Update 3-1-11 - Batman: Long Halloween, Streets of Gotham, Gotham City Sirens, Arkham Reborn

Thanks to everyone who's been waiting so patiently for a reading order update to the DC Universe Trade Paperback Timeline. I think the Bat-errific update has a lot of what you've been looking for.

First, Batman: The Long Halloween and its related books have finally made it to the timeline. Credit in no small part Tony Daniel's Batman: Life After Death -- some books have made vague references to Long Halloween before, but Daniel's is the first to completely summarize Long Halloween and Dark Victory's plots, and that brings those stories firmly into continuity.

I've placed them after Infinite Crisis, just before Batman: Face the Face, which itself makes a vague reference to Long Halloween. Why not just after Batman: Year One? Because, the way I conceive the timeline, you're reading these books the way they're meant to be understood, and Long Halloween, though it's set in the "Year One" era, is not a contemporary of Frank Miller's 1980s story. Dark Victory, for instance, specifically contradicts Batman: Prodigal and Robin: Year One for simple reasons, that Dark Victory wasn't written yet, so for the timeline I wouldn't recommend reading the Long Halloween books that early; that would just confuse things. But your results may vary.

The other item of note is that some major aspects of the "Batman Reborn" saga -- Streets of Gotham, Gotham City Sirens, the aforementioned Life After Death, and Batman: Arkham Reborn all now appear on the timeline. In short order the rest of "Batman Reborn" is on its way, mostly in line with what reviews you see on Collected Editions.

Other highlights include Ravager: Fresh Hell, Blue Beetle: Black and Blue, and some other minor gaps filled in.

Don't forget you can subscribe to the Collected Editions comments feed for all the latest chatter on the blog; there's also often timeline talk on our Facebook page and Twitter feed. See you around!

Update 6-6-10 - Teen Titans, Justice Society, Huntress, Crisis on Multiple Earths

Admittedly not a great amount of reading order updates to the DC Universe Trade Paperback Timeline this weekend, but some we hope you find interesting. In addition to adding some Blackest Night crossover titles (it's getting to be that time!) and Teen Titan spotlight trades, I've added a bit to our Pre-Crisis section.

Again, the goal of the Pre-Crisis section is to note the collections of solely pre-Crisis material (not pre- and post-Crisis material, which would go in the timeline proper) that's still referenced in the modern DC Universe, and to point out those pre-Crisis stories we think contribute to a good understanding of modern-day DC Comics.

Among others today, we've updated trades concerned the Earth-2 Power Girl and the Earth-2 Huntress. Infinite Crisis included both mentions of the modern Power Girl's past Earth-2 life, and also such events as the death of the Earth-2 Batman; these items on the timeline should help readers sort those out.

Thanks for all the well-wishes. There's more updates coming soon!

Update 09-03-08

As I've posted over at the Collected Editions blog, I've just updated the DC Trade Paperback Timeline. This update completes most of our One Year Later work and delves into the first volume of Countdown. Among events referenced here are the creation of the Justice League and Green Arrow's proposal to Black Canary, before Amazons Attack deposits us firmly in Countdown-land.

[Countdown, Volume One spoilers follow.]

One tricky spot in the timeline is placing the Teen Titans: Titans East collection before Countdown, Volume One. Bart Allen appears in Titans East, and I wanted all of his "alive" appearances to come before his death; this necessitates Titans East before Countdown. However, Duela Dent's death, which happens mainly in Countdown, is also shown in Titans East; to place Titans East before Countdown "spoils" Duela's death.

Ultimately I decided that preserving the order of Bart Allen's appearances was more important than doing so for Duela Dent, and Titans East should come first. Titans East does a good job with Duela's death, showing it on-screen rather than just referencing it, and so I didn't think it took anything away from that scene to put Titans East before Countdown, whereas the same couldn't be said for the opposite. So there you go.

I'm also still sorting out Captain Boomerang's appearances between Checkmate, Outsiders, Flash, and Countdown. I'm not sure there's a way around Boomer's appearance in Flash spoiling that he leaves the Outsiders in Five of a Kind, but I'm still looking in to this.

As always, any corrections you may find are much appreciated.

DC Countdown and the TPB Timeline ...

No updates lately, mainly because I've finished reading the Infinite Crisis crossover trades and placed them on the timeline, but I haven't yet started reading the One Year Later trades. But I did briefly scan over the DC Comics MySpace Countdown preview issues, and I see that Countdown #50 apparently crosses over with Justice League of America #8 or #9. Not to mention the upcoming three-way Teen Titans, Amazons Attack, and Countdown crossovers--which is to say, when we finally get to the Countdown trades, there's going to be much fun to be had in timeline-land.

Stay patient--more timeline updates soon.

UPDATE: A little bit more on this over at The Roar of Comics.