One of Joss Whedon’s more interesting ideas, and frustratingly cut short before it could fulfil its potential.
Dollhouse: Season Two DVDThe iconic Western character, of whose assorted appearances it’s remarkable for any two to appear in the actual order they occur.
Obviously, it’s a big assumption that the Man With No Name is in fact the same man in all three films – but they work as a thematic trilogy. On that level, consider this a thematic timeline.
In Victorian London, a small group of people will face the most unspeakable horrors, and risk becoming them…
Penny Dreadful, Season OneWeaving back and forth across novels, comics and movies, the Jurassic Park franchise is not entirely internally consistent, but it is a lot of fun.
I mean, it has dinosaurs. Sometimes even drawn by Walt Simonson.
What more could you possibly want?
- Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous
Fables is a story where all the characters from your favourite fairy tales are live in the modern world and are not always terribly pleased about it.
It’s Vertigo’s second longest running series (behind Hellblazer), and deservedly so – it’s got a rich cast, clever plotting and dialogue, and an apparently bottomless well to draw inspiration from. And after more than a decade of working on the title, it still feels like Willingham is just getting started. If you haven’t already read Bill Willingham’s magnum opus, do yourself a favour and dig into it.
- Jack of Fables, vol.1: The (Nearly) Great Escape
- Reprints Jack of Fables #1-5 (September 2006 – January 2007).
- Jack of Fables, vol.2: Jack of Hearts
- Reprints Jack of Fables #6-11 (February 2007 – July 2007).
- Jack of Fables, vol.3: The Bad Prince
- Reprints Jack of Fables #12-16 (August 2007 – December 2007).
NB: despite their publication dates, all three of these Jack of Fables collections occur during The Good Prince – subsequent Jack of Fables volumes line up more smoothly with the main Fables title
- Cinderella: Fables Are Forever
- Reprints Cinderella: Fables Are Forever #1-6 (April 2011 – September 2011).
Slightly overlaps the conclusion of Rose Red, but is best read after.
- Fairest, vol.1: Wide Awake
- Reprints Fairest #1-7 (May 2012 – November 2012).
- Fairest, vol.5: The Clamour for Glamour
- Reprints Fairest #27-33 (September 2014 – March 2015).
Contains two stories, one of which parallels Happily Ever After, the other serving as a prequel to Fairest in all the Land.
Mark Waid’s brilliant Irredeemable is more or less based on a What If question:
What if Superman went mad and became a supervillain?
It’s a close look at the psychology of superheroics, starting from the unexamined assumption in most comics that anyone who gains powers will also have the right kind of personality for being a hero. The Plutonian is a Superman-analogue who isn’t up to the pressure…
…and Incorruptible is a companion series featuring one of the Plutonian’s arch-enemies, Max Damage, who has an epiphany and decides to become a hero in response to the Plutonian’s turn to villainy. His problem is that the only way he can think of to be a hero is to do the opposite of what he did as a villain…
A Victorian Era Justice League
A little series by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill, which began as a Victorian Era Justice League featuring the familiar characters of that era’s fiction, but eventually expanded into the modest ambition of eventually including basically every piece of fiction ever. Along the way, it moved from America’s Best Comics (an imprint of WildStorm Comics published under the aegis of DC Comics) to a wholly creator-owned new home at Top Shelf Productions.
That said, a fantastic set of series, with loving attention to detail shining from every panel. This timeline also includes the annotations to the various volumes, since you’ll be missing at least half of the references without them.
Despite its original publisher, it is not a part of the America’s Best Comics Universe.
A few years from now…
