Review: Uneven recommendations
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 11, 2013
This book of essential DC trades kicks off with an off center 25 best tpb list from DC then launches into recommending each of the New 52 volume ones, then characters (lumping all the females together terribly) and the Vertigo Universe (and non Vertigo titles mixed in) and ends with the only good part of it - a backlist in order more or less - that is still awkwardly paced.If you're new this is maybe a three star but any fan friend, or internet article or forum with a search, will tell you far better choices than the generalizing here.The inclusion of several good but hardly must read, and even awful books, makes the essential list fairly moot at the end. Titles like Joker and Flash: Rebirth do not belong on any essential reading list. Superman Chronicles makes the cut but his allies' chronicles don't, and the majority of the fandom found it insulting Wonder Woman doesn't get a page, that Mark Waid (who Geoff John's basically copied in the old days before he started Green Lantern and turned the book meandering) gets no Flash mentions.The fact that 90% of the recommended books technically no longer matter in DC's current regime is the icing on this mediocre cake.Just look online for better DC lists..or start buying other companies instead.