Last week, I discussed my first step in getting caught up with my reading of all the comic books I collected while I was deployed. After I began with the pressing issues, I moved to some selected shorter runs.

To take some of the pressure off and slow down, I got caught up on my Daredevil, and Teen Titans. These are definitely two of my favorites, so I wanted to get caught up and begin reading the newer stories right away. In addition to these two titles, I started some newer series, Captain America: Reborn, Flash: Rebirth, Adventure Comics and Superman Secret origin. These I would’ve ordered anyway, so it’s best not to get behind—but I’m enjoying them as well.

The future plan is to catch up on three larger projects that will complete my task of getting caught up.

Superman

While Superman is my favorite character, I have been putting this project off until I move to Virginia. The entire Superman storyline over the past year has been focused on New Krypton. In order to capture the entire story, I will be reading Action Comics, Superman, World of New Krypton, Supergirl, and the here and there one-shots that point back to the main story line. This is adding up to be a major undertaking. This will be my next major project following my completion of all of the Teen Titans—where I was only seven away when I put them in a shipment back to the states from my current home in Germany.

Amazing Spider-man

Right before I left for Iraq, in April 2008, the Amazing Spider-man went to three per month—I think it was November of 2007. This will be another major project to catch up with. Mainly because of the shear amount of books that I will have to get through, I want to clear off a large amount of time to get me up-to-date. The problem here is that this title adds three more issues a month, so I need to get this done soon.

Trinity

Not as big as a time issue with this title. I bought this series with much anticipation in May 2008. I’m still waiting to read it, but I do not have the requirement to finish quickly before other issues are added—so I’ve got a little more leeway before I complete this project.

Sometime in between these titles, I will get caught up with Fantastic Four, Justice League of America and some of the other titles that I haven’t mentioned. Most, I have found are connected to the major storyline project that I have going—so there isn’t much left after that. I’m looking forward to completing these big chunks, so I can focus on reading what is in the inbox as I go week to week.

When I deployed to Iraq in April 2008, I continued to subscribe to my comic book pull list at Midtown Comics. I learned from my previous deployment that it was easier and less expensive to continue to subscribe during the deployment rather than try to hunt each issue down at the end of a deployment.

The problem, however, remains to be how to catch up on all of the reading.

During the publishing year of 2008 and 2009, there were several different story lines that were impacting the current DC Universe. Because of this, I couldn’t just start reading and go pick up the storylines when I had the chance—I needed to get the background before I could understand what was going on.

I began with the pressing issues.

While I was downrange, I began to hear and read about the “Batman R.I.P.” series that was taking place in the summer of 2008. I watched the published lists and made sure that they made it into my inbox. When I returned home—I was anxious to read the Batman R.I.P. story and chose that one first. This included all Batman, Detective Comics, Outsiders, and Robin comic books.

Then, I began to read the newer books from Red Robin, Batman: Streets of Gotham, Batman and Robin, and Batgirl. These kept me engaged in the overarching Batman story—so now I read these first when I receive a shipment from Midtown Comics.

The second pressing issue was the biggest story of this summer—Green Lantern: Blackest Night. Now, this series, while current, also reaches back into last year for the development of the story. So I again read all of these issues from last year leading up to The Blackest Night.

This has gotten me up to date with, what I think, are the largest stories going on right now—except for the Superman arc. Next week, I will talk about how I plan on catching up with this and other stories.